(Reuters) – Microsoft Corp goals to secure web access for 100 million more people in Africa by 2025, teaming up with a satellite provider and setting the stage for longer-term cloud adoption, its President Brad Smith told Reuters.
The software maker has long pushed to bring more people online, playing the role of facilitator amongst telecoms and electricity providers, governments and non-profits. Since 2017, it helped widen connectivity for 50 million people, including nearly 10 million in Africa, under its so-called Airband initiative.
Now, Microsoft is tapping satellite technology for this system for the primary time, aiming to achieve distant areas which have had little connectivity. In news pegged to the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, Microsoft said Wednesday it’s working with Viasat Inc to expand access in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other countries globally.
Smith said the hassle was “constructing a latest marketplace for access to the web, for using the cloud, for the ability of AI, the power to harness data. All of these items connect with our business.”
He declined to state Microsoft’s financial commitment to Airband but said money “is in some ways the least vital a part of our contribution” relative to its growing partnerships and helping others make sustainable investments.
Africa, he said, represented a burgeoning talent pool in contrast to declining population growth elsewhere. Microsoft now has greater than 500 engineers in Nairobi and greater than 200 in Lagos, he said.
(Reporting By Jeffrey Dastin in Palo Alto, Calif.; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)
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