Yasser Shaker & Asma Ennaifer
Orange Africa

“Orange is positioning itself as a key player in the linguistic enrichment of AI in Africa,” says Yasser Shaker, Chief Executive Officer of Orange Africa & Middle East (OMEA). Meanwhile, Asma Ennaifer, Executive Director for Corporate Social Responsibility and head of the Orange Digital Centers (ODC) network, writes on X: “Orange is using AI to make its network smarter and more sustainable.” The Orange Digital Centers are the operator’s flagship digital skills initiative, providing training and entrepreneurship support across the continent. Operating in 17 African countries, as well as Jordan, Orange generates its highest global profit margins in the region, with revenues rising 11% last year. The French telecommunications group is increasingly relying on artificial intelligence to improve customer experience, particularly through a partnership with OpenAI that enables it to integrate a growing number of African languages into its services. At the GSMA mobile industry congress in October, Orange launched AI Language Models in Africa, by Africa, for Africa, an initiative aimed at developing AI models that genuinely reflect the continent’s linguistic richness. Several African telecom operators have since joined the project. AI is also helping Orange reduce the environmental footprint of its infrastructure. As Ennaifer explains: “We adapt network capacity in real time according to demand and usage,” allowing the company to optimise energy consumption across its technical sites.