Microsoft Corp. says it will open its first “development center” in Africa, with plans to spend more than $100 million over the next five years and hire 400 new staff over the next four years.

The initiative will stretch across the African continent. Microsoft plans to open two initial offices, in Nairobi, Kenya, on the eastern coast, and in Lagos, Nigeria, on the west. The goal is to hire an initial 100 employees for both locations by the end of the year, including engineers who will work on projects in artificial intelligence, machine learning and mixed reality.

Microsoft will also partner with several local universities in those countries to create a modern “intelligent edge and cloud curriculum” that will be unique to Africa, with graduates being provided with access to the new development centers.

“The ADC will be unlike any other existing investment on the continent,” Phil Spencer, executive vice president at Microsoft and executive sponsor of the Africa Development Center, said in a statement. “It will help us better listen to our customers, develop locally and scale for global impact. Beyond that, it’s an opportunity to engage further with partners, academia, governments and developers – driving impact in sectors important to the continent, such as FinTech, AgriTech and OffGrid energy.”

The initiative is being launched almost three decades after Microsoft opened its first African office. Microsoft’s latest gambit continues a recent push by major cloud computing providers to get more involved in Africa, which is still viewed as a largely untapped market. The Redmond-based firm last year opened up its first Azure cloud regions in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa, following IBM Corp., which opened its first data center there in 2016.

Amazon Web Services Inc. is also planning to open its first African AWS region in Cape Town, South Africa, by mid-2020.

“Africa is what Asia has been in the last 50 years, only for the next 50 years, said Holger Mueller, principal analyst and vice president of Constellation Research Inc. “So it’s key for tech giants like Microsoft to be in location to understand the trends, people, culture and help catalyze technology progress and awareness in the region.”

Photo: Microsoft