Apple Pay has officially launched in Mauritius, making it the third African country to offer the service, following South Africa and Morocco.

• Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB) and Visa are the key partners enabling Apple Pay in the Indian Ocean nation.
• This launch positions Mauritius as a growing financial hub, while Kenya remains excluded due to its dominant mobile money ecosystem and lack of banking partnerships.
• iPhone users in Mauritius can now make contactless payments, a feature not yet available to Kenyan iPhone users.

Meta has removed the option for end-to-end encrypted direct messages on Instagram, effective May 8, 2026. This change means Meta can now access the content of all Instagram DMs.

• The official reason given by Meta is that very few users opted into the end-to-end encryption feature.
• The change coincides with the enforcement of the US TAKE IT DOWN Act, which mandates rapid removal of non-consensual intimate imagery.
• Meta was recently ordered to pay $375 million in civil penalties in New Mexico for misleading users about platform safety.

Four Kenyan companies – Qhala, Amini AI, Angani, and iXAfrica Data Centres – have launched Qubit Hub to bolster Africa's AI infrastructure. Announced at AI Everything GITEX Kenya 2026, the initiative aims to create a unified platform for AI research, cloud capabilities, and digital sovereignty, positioning Kenya as a regional innovation hub.

• Qubit Hub is an African AI research, innovation, and development lab incubated by Qhala.
• Key organizations involved include Qhala (research/innovation), Amini AI (sovereign AI/compute), Angani (local cloud), and iXAfrica (data centre infrastructure).
• The collaboration focuses on developing practical AI solutions by bringing AI builders closer to essential resources like trusted data, scalable compute, and cloud access.