Powering Sovereignty: Nuclear Energy, the Twin Transition, and Africa's Digital Future

Every conversation about Africa's digital future: artificial intelligence (AI), data governance, digital infrastructure, and innovation ecosystems, circles around one: How do we power this? Not in theory. In practice. In megawatts. At 3 a.m., the server must not go down.

The AI hype is real; big corporations are arriving, capital is moving, the demand is there, and ambition is high. But with the continent still building its energy foundation, how can it meaningfully pursue digital transformation and ecological sustainability at the same time without sacrificing one for the other? This is what the world calls the twin transition: the simultaneous pursuit of digital transformation and ecological sustainability, and NEISA 2026, held in Kigali from 18 to 21 May, suggested not only that Africa can but that Rwanda is already showing what it looks like in practice.

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