Pan-African telecoms company Vodacom is using Google Cloud’s data analytics and AI products to establish a platform for creating products and services tailored for the African market.

Vodacom, which is majority-owned by Vodafone, will harness the capabilities of Google Cloud’s secure, scalable infrastructure to unify its vast data assets and then apply generative AI models, including Gemini, Veo and Imagen, across its business. This will result in improved operational efficiencies for Vodacom and deliver AI-powered services for African consumers.

“This collaboration is more than a technology upgrade; it is a deep commitment to Africa’s digital revolution,” said Shameel Joosub, CEO of Vodacom. “Integrating Google Cloud’s data and AI into our business will modernise our infrastructure and fundamentally shift our operational paradigm. This collaboration is essential for us to build and deploy solutions that address the unique challenges and opportunities of the continent, ensuring the transformative power of AI is accessible to millions of customers and businesses across Africa.”

Maureen Costello, vice president at Google Cloud, added: “Google Cloud is proud to support Vodacom in accelerating AI across Africa. By providing access to our most advanced generative AI models from Gemini and our leading data infrastructure, we are supporting Vodacom’s ambitious vision to build technology that improves the lives of Africans.”

The primary goals of the collaboration are centred on three pillars:

• Data modernisation and unification: Vodacom will migrate and unify its critical data platforms onto Google Cloud’s data cloud, including BigQuery. This enables Vodacom to achieve real-time insights, enhanced data governance and a single, secure source of truth for business decisions. This foundation is essential for deploying large-scale AI models.
• Accelerated AI adoption in Africa: Vodacom will harness Google Cloud’s AI capabilities, such as Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform and Google’s Gemini models, to integrate intelligent services rapidly into its offerings. This includes optimising network performance, enhancing customer service with AI-powered personalised care, and combating fraud through machine-learning models, effectively bringing AI capabilities closer to African consumers.
• Product innovation for the future: By using Google Cloud’s AI capabilities, Vodacom will focus on developing products and services for the African market. Initial focus areas include creating fintech services for greater financial inclusion, developing enterprise offerings and designing consumer experiences to improve content accessibility and education.

The collaboration builds on the existing relationship between Vodacom’s parent company, Vodafone, and Google Cloud, demonstrating a commitment to scaling digital innovation and providing enterprise-grade security and reliability across all markets.

Vodacom (www.vodacom.co.za) is a pan-African technology company with over 223.2 million customers, including Safaricom and 93.7 million financial services users. From its roots in South Africa, it has grown the business to include operations in the DRC, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique and Tanzania. As the continent’s largest facilitator of mobile money transactions, Vodacom processes $460bn in value annually and is majority-owned by Vodafone (www.vodafone.com).

Google Cloud (cloud.google.com) provides AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security and collaboration tools. It offers a fully integrated AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications.