Four African technology organizations have announced a collaboration to host Qubit Hub — an African AI research, innovation and development lab — at iXAfrica’s NBOX1 data centre in Nairobi, creating what the partners describe as a strategic environment where AI research, cloud capability, data infrastructure and digital sovereignty can converge.
The announcement was made during AI Everything GITEX Kenya 2026, as Kenya continues to position itself as a serious AI, cloud and digital infrastructure hub for the continent.
Qubit Hub is incubated by Qhala under its QTrust initiative and is designed to bring together researchers, technologists, data scientists, policymakers and builders working on practical AI solutions for Africa. The collaboration brings together a complementary ecosystem of partners: Qhala provides the innovation, research and ecosystem-building platform behind Qubit Hub; Amini AI strengthens the sovereign compute, AI and data infrastructure layer; Angani brings local cloud capability to support testing, deployment and scale; and iXAfrica provides the AI-ready, carrier-neutral data centre infrastructure required to host and power the ecosystem.
“With this partnership, we are solving for compute, talent and community,” said Shikoh Gitau, CEO of Qhala. “iXAfrica is AI-ready, and they are providing the infrastructure we need to ensure we can scale as the continent’s needs grow — which means we can deliver this not just to Kenya, but to researchers across the region. This is not a Kenya-only construct. It is about providing compute to AI builders and researchers across Africa. This is exciting.”
The partners said the collaboration reflects a clear shift in Africa’s AI conversation — the next phase will not be won by models alone but by trusted data, cloud access, compute capacity, governance, local infrastructure and ecosystem coordination. By hosting Qubit Hub infrastructure at iXAfrica, the partners aim to reinforce Kenya’s role as a launchpad for AI innovation, sovereign cloud, data infrastructure and regional digital growth.
The initiative is intended to support researchers, startups, enterprises and policymakers as they move from AI discussion to practical deployment, with Kenya positioned as a key base for Africa’s broader AI infrastructure ecosystem.
