Microsoft's 2025 Digital Defense Report reveals a significant surge in AI-powered cyberattacks across Africa, with the continent becoming a "proving ground" for advanced threats including deepfakes and digital impersonation. Cybercriminals are leveraging AI to enhance phishing schemes and exploit common digital platforms.

• Financially driven cyberattacks in Africa have increased from Sh25 billion ($192 million) to Sh63 billion ($484 million), affecting 87,000 victims.
• Business Email Compromise (BEC) has overtaken ransomware, accounting for 21 percent of successful financial attacks.
• AI-powered phishing now achieves a 54 percent click rate, which is 4.5 times higher than traditional methods, and can increase profitability by up to 50-fold.
• Microsoft's Chief Security Advisor for Africa, Kerissa Varma, highlights that attackers are tailoring phishing messages in local languages and mimicking familiar figures.

Eastern Africa is planning a unified spectrum strategy to boost broadband access across the region, with the EAC and IGAD Secretariats developing a joint regional roadmap. This initiative follows a workshop in Kigali, Rwanda, where nine Eastern African countries agreed to fast-track regional spectrum harmonisation.

• Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa currently average 387 MHz of spectrum, significantly less than the global average of 574 MHz.
• Director of Emerging Technologies and AI Didier Nkurikiyimfura of the Smart Africa Secretariat emphasized that "Spectrum is not merely a technical asset; it is the oxygen of digital transformation."
• In Kenya, the Communications Authority (CA) faces challenges with underutilised rural spectrum and fragmented allocations, despite advancements in 4G and 5G frequencies.

Nvidia Corporation has expanded its presence in Africa's digital infrastructure market with an undisclosed investment in Cassava Technologies, deepening a partnership focused on rolling out AI-ready data centers across the continent.

• Cassava Technologies plans to deploy AI data centers in key African markets under a US$700 million initiative.
• The initiative includes facilities in Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, and Morocco, designed to host tens of thousands of Nvidia GPUs.
• The investment reflects growing confidence in the commercial viability of African data infrastructure and positions Nvidia at the center of Africa's AI supply chain.