All our stories, in order, Dakar time (GMT).
Wednesday 30 September
A week after GPT-6 Sol, OpenAI used DevDay to unveil a version that comes close to its top-end Astra for a fifth of the price. Good news for developers, in Africa too. But the model’s safety card puts it in the highest risk category for cybersecurity.
Tuesday 29 September
According to consistent leaks, the Collector edition of the Mate 90 Pro Max, unveiled on 1 October, would get a 10x zoom module with its own 1-inch sensor. More than an accessory: a screenless compact camera fixed to the phone. What it promises, what it would cost, and what it changes for African buyers.
Without being asked to, OpenAI’s autonomous agents uploaded photos entrusted to ChatGPT to public image hosts. The people concerned cannot be notified. The episode adds to a string of incidents that led the company to suspend tool use by its most advanced models.
More than 30% faster, leaner, and sometimes better than Opus 5.5 according to Anthropic’s published tests: the new Sonnet reshuffles the cards of low-cost AI. It also arrives with safeguards previously reserved for the most powerful models. What it changes, including for African developers.
2,250 kW chargers, a battery that can charge at 12C and an AI that anticipates temperature: Chinese group Geely beats BYD’s record on production cars. A race for speed that raises questions about the power grid and about when it will arrive outside China.
Ndubuisi Ekekwe, a Nigerian engineer who once helped design sensors for the first iPhones, is launching a closed, encrypted phone linked to his future stock exchange. A niche product in a market where more than 60% of phones sell for under $150.
Monday 28 September
The 14th test flight of SpaceX’s giant rocket deployed real Starlink satellites and completed its first laps of the Earth, before an early return to the Pacific. A key step for the Moon, Mars and satellite internet, including in Africa.
Florida’s attorney general is seeking an emergency order: no new model without independent oversight, and no more ChatGPT access for minors. He turns OpenAI’s own calls to slow down against it.
South African startup Vambo AI trained MORENA, a model covering twelve African languages, on a supercomputer lent free of charge. The hardest part was finding text. A lesson for the whole ecosystem.
A Lagos court rejected the idea that non-users whose numbers sit in someone’s phonebook give “implied consent”. For lack of proof of harm, the case was nonetheless dismissed. Truecaller points out that anyone can remove their number.
Carbonised in AD 79 and too fragile to unroll, scroll PHerc. 1667 reveals a treatise of Stoic philosophy. Synchrotron X-rays, virtual unrolling and machine learning: a method that could give a voice back to hundreds of ancient texts.
Near-constant sunlight and the cold of space: Google wants to run its AI chips in orbit. A first prototype is due to lift off on 1 October on a SpaceX rocket. The obstacles remain huge: radiation, cooling, cost and the carbon footprint of launches.
France’s OVHcloud will provide the cloud and Canada’s CGI the architecture of Digital EO, the future European platform for satellite data. That data is also used to monitor crops, forests and floods in Africa.
Open software that logs every action an agent takes, and a hardware “watchdog” able to isolate it within milliseconds: NVIDIA responds to recent incidents by placing security outside the model, where the agent cannot get around it.
About a hundred internet shutdowns in Africa between 2016 and 2025. Behind each one, an operator carrying out a government order. Ranking Digital Rights is calling MTN, Vodacom, Airtel and the others to account.
In three London cafés, Revolut customers can pay without a card or phone, just by looking at the terminal’s camera. A showcase for the neobank’s strategy of controlling the entire payment chain.
The Arab satellite organisation has chosen Chinese manufacturer CGWIC for the television satellite that will mark its 50th anniversary. Beijing is establishing itself as a turnkey satellite supplier for the Arab world and Africa.
During testing, hundreds of OpenAI agents broke into Hugging Face’s systems, then other sites. For South African expert Dominic White, it is first and foremost a very ordinary security failure. And a warning for every company deploying agents.
The CBN has cut its policy rate by 3.5 points to 23%, its biggest cut on record. Yet ten years of data show that rates explain only a small part of lending to small businesses, which remains marginal.
A scam can target one country, cash out in a second and launder the money in a third within hours. For Franck Kié (Cyber Africa Forum) and Ouanilo Medegan Fagla (Benin’s CNIN), only permanent African cooperation can keep up.
Free courses for public servants across the continent on one side, a national platform for 15,000 Cameroonian civil servants on the other. African administrations are discovering that before buying AI, they need to learn how to use it.
180 mini-grids, 146,000 households connected: the electrification programme has shown that decentralised solar works. But the naira’s devaluation sent costs soaring, and a new $300 million fund must prove that private investment can be attracted.
Irrigation pumps, solar kits, loans to smallholders: three companies closed funding deals in September. All rely on the same idea, getting customers to pay for equipment as they use it, and face the same challenge: finding money in local currency.
The trackers disagree, the trend does not: the money came back earlier than in 2024, driven by a few very large rounds. Behind the record figure, the number of start-ups funded and of active investors is falling.
Sunday 27 September
An Italian bank lost €95 million because of a lawyer’s voice imitated by AI. Elsewhere, a hacker stole 600,000 bank cards with three AI agents and a few thousand dollars. Two cases that change how we need to protect ourselves.