Inq announces enterprise AI products for Nigeria’s energy market

Inq operates in 10 countries across emerging markets, but its goal in Nigeria is clear: use AI to make energy distribution in Nigeria more efficient.

Inq Group, a Pan-African edge technology provider backed by Convergence Partners, has announced its AI-powered solutions for the Nigerian energy market. According to the group’s chairman, Andile Ngcaba, the product will be integrated into the distribution network of energy distribution companies (DisCos), enabling real-time analysis of energy flow and tracking energy leaks.

This announcement follows Inq’s recent reveal of two homegrown AI products it released for its 10 markets across Africa and Asia: DocAi and VisionAI. DocAI is a tool that digitises processes for businesses and allows them to use area-specific, deep learning optical character recognition (OCR) to upload scanned documents and extract valuable information. Vision AI allows enterprises to deploy AI-powered image recognition technologies across camera surveillance systems—enabling real-time analytics and alerts.

“We have locally built the continent’s leading intellectual property in artificial intelligence. Our products aren’t plug-ins to another man’s technology,” Ngcaba said in a media briefing on Tuesday. “We will lead the continent’s adoption of AI and bring it to real-life cases in agriculture, energy, and digital recognition,” he added.

Inq Group has operated in Nigeria for about four years, and in that time has provided enterprise-level cloud, connectivity, and IoT solutions for businesses in the country. The company says it has also built proprietary large language models that are powering its AI-solutions suite today.

The media briefing also marked the introduction of Glad Dibetso, the new group CEO, to stakeholders in the Nigerian market. Dibetso takes over this role after leaving Deloitte Consulting as a partner, cloud computing and ICT operations. Before this role, he served as the CEO of the West African operations at Dimension Data, a data solutions provider backed by Convergence Partners.

“Electricity in Nigeria is powered by distribution companies. They collect monies from end users to pay the companies transmitting and generating electricity. But DisCos have struggled to remain profitable due to the lack of proper analytics to track the distribution and detect mass leakages. This is where we come in. We are already in talks with the government for adoption,” said Valentine Chime, Inq Nigeria’s managing director.

Andile Ngcaba shared strong optimism in Inq’s business in Nigeria. “Nigeria will be Inq’s regional hub, through which we will expand to several anglophone countries in the region,” he said.