Abu Dhabi-listed AI company Presight has added three more African governments to its growing portfolio of sovereign digital partnerships, signing separate memoranda of understanding with Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire and Gabon. The agreements cover the design and deployment of AI-driven digital systems for public administration, financial transparency, cybersecurity, and government service delivery, and extend Presight’s African presence to at least eleven markets.
Presight is majority-owned by G42, Abu Dhabi’s flagship technology group, and the deals reflect a pattern of UAE-linked entities deploying AI capabilities into African government infrastructure, operating as embedded operational partners rather than conventional software vendors.
Country by Country
The scope of each agreement reflects the specific digital priorities of each government. In Burkina Faso, Presight signed an MoU with the Ministry of Digital Transition, Posts and Electronic Communications to support the country’s digital transformation agenda. The initiative will explore AI-enabled systems to improve public service delivery, enhance financial transparency and treasury management, and establish a comprehensive cybersecurity framework. The partnership also includes an AI Expert Factory to train local engineers and the establishment of the Ouaga Granit Valley Centre, a national hub designed to accelerate Burkina Faso’s technology ecosystem.
In Côte d’Ivoire, two MoUs were signed; one with the Ministry of Digital Transition and Digitisation, and another with the Ministry of State, Public Services and Modernisation of the Administration. The agreements support the development of advanced digital platforms for government data management, inter-agency coordination, and public administration efficiency, while backing the country’s ambition to become a regional hub for digital innovation.
In Gabon, Presight signed the MoU in February 2026 as a renewal of an existing agreement with the Ministry of Digital Economy and Innovation, maintaining continuity in an ongoing digital transformation programme and extending the scope of AI-driven modernisation of public services.
Sovereign AI as a Strategic Play
What makes Presight’s model worth watching is how it is structured. Rather than pitching governments on off-the-shelf tools, the company embeds AI and data analytics directly into state operations: treasury management, civil service administration, and national cybersecurity frameworks. That approach gives it institutional depth and makes its relationships harder to displace once established.
Presight is also advancing partnerships, pilot projects, and digital innovation programmes in Angola, the Republic of Congo, The Gambia, Mauritius, Seychelles, Tanzania, Zambia, and Uganda. The three new agreements accelerate what is already a substantial continental footprint.
The deals also land within a broader wave of AI investment targeting Africa. The African Development Bank Group and the United Nations Development Programme recently launched a $10 billion initiative aimed at accelerating responsible AI adoption and inclusive digital economic growth across the continent. This builds on the UAE’s AI for Development initiative, announced in 2025 with $1 billion in funding to support AI projects in African countries.
For African governments, the appeal is access to proven AI infrastructure expertise without the overhead of building it independently. The risk, as with any deep dependency on a foreign technology partner, lies in the long-term terms of that relationship. MoUs are frameworks, not guarantees, and the distance between signing an agreement and delivering a functioning national digital system remains significant. Presight’s expanding footprint suggests it is betting that execution, not just deal-making, is where this race will be won.
