Nigeria’s Massive Opportunity in Hardware.Development for AI Era [updated]

Amazon now makes some of its chips: “Amazon’s cloud computing arm Amazon Web Services Tuesday announced plans for an “Ultracluster,” a massive AI supercomputer made up of hundreds of thousands of its homegrown Trainium chips, as well as a new server, the latest efforts by its AI chip design lab based in Austin, Texas. The chip cluster will be used by the AI startup Anthropic, in which the retail and cloud-computing giant recently invested an additional $4 billion.“ -WSJ

Apple to use its own modem on some products: “Apple will release its own modem next spring as it looks to replace technology from rival Qualcomm, Bloomberg reports, citing anonymous sources. The in-house modem, code-named Sinope, will debut in the iPhone SE, Apple’s entry-level smartphone.” – LinkedIn News

What is going on? After years of neglect, companies are now looking for how hardware will catch up with software. Yes, the advancement of software systems is multiples ahead of hardware, even though there is a limitation for any software system, bounded by hardware. In other words, to advance those clicks, you have to have the hardware to process and compute them, and when there is a limitation on hardware, software underperforms. Nvidia picked that construct and touched the face of alpha-wealth.

However, Nvidia chips are very expensive and that will limit participation of many companies and countries in the productive part of AI development and evolution, over mere acceleration of consumerism.

The question becomes: how do you solve the hardware problems, and tap into the opportunities? You need to recruit, train and deploy the capabilities of young people. Interestingly, in the next decade, that broad electronics and microelectronics domain will be a huge career opportunity in tech as hardware will take years to evolve to support the AI era.

Nigeria has a massive opportunity in this space. There was a time we exported software engineers via Andela, etc, the next age will be hardware guys!

If Nigeria’s National Universities Commission can offer a small waiver, to give a temporary license, to run and operate a focused technical university*, on presentation of fund availability of N5 billion, Tekedia Capital will work with partners to set up such a school in Nigeria. Upon the presentation of this license, takeoff will happen within 24 months. But the requirement to build a campus before a license is issued does not work with our US institutional technical partners. Our vision is not to ask students to pay full tuition, but pay when they start work, and we plan to help on job placements. Who can help to make this happen for that license?

Our Understanding of How to Diffuse Semiconductor  in Economies

Our Understanding of How to Diffuse Semiconductor  in Economies

I studied how countries have developed their semiconductor industries, from the time Shockley invented the transistor, in the late 1940s,  to the current age. I published it in a book – Nanotechnology and Microelectronics, and that book won the IGI Global Book of the Year award. That book today remains displayed in the Johns Hopkins University as I wrote it while a PhD student there.

With that book, I received an invitation from the Brazilian President to work on its national semiconductor vision. Later, the Mayor of Moscow and the Deputy Economic Minister of Russia extended invitations ( see here https://www.tekedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Mr.-Ekekwe-1-scaled.jpg ) . I travelled to Moscow a couple of times, and assisted on the Skolkovo Innovation Center planning. But when the US sanctioned Russia for Crimea, all of us from America cut ties, as it was impossible to be paid. 

So, one understands this industry and we can make it happen for Nigeria. The path is via the university system because you need a continuous pipeline to make it an industry. And only a university will provide a path to attract the smartest kids. And most will not need to pay until post-graduation, making it accessible to the smartest kids irrespective of their pockets. Within the campus, there will be operating companies.

But we cannot build a campus first before we can get a license; so, we need a way to get over that. Good People, many are making calls to see how we can get this licensing issue; thank you. I am documenting here and let us make it happen.

Comment on Feed

Question: “How do you plan to offer free or party free education in the proposed university, for students to pay back post graduation?”

My Response: Tekedia Capital has invested in close to 150 companies worldwide, across sectors and industries. That anchor puts the idea at a different pedestal which no university in Nigeria can boast of. We do not think it would be an issue to place students on decent paying jobs. All we need is to understand the  needs of markets,  and align our training to meet those needs and beyond. 

More so, we will also have some of those firms open branches on the campus, making it easier to integrate academic learning and practical experience. The plan is to have a program that is very small, but impactful, because tuition will not drive the revenue playbook.

Comment 2: Ndubuisi Ekekwe, this hardware evolution feels like an exciting puzzle waiting to be solved together! any thoughts on partnerships?

My Response: I am the REAL partnership our dear Nigeria needs. Ndubuisi Ekekwe earned PhD in electrical & computer engineering from the Johns Hopkins University specializing in microelectronics & robotics engineering. He joined Analog Devices where he rose to a lead ASIC Designer, creating the company’s first wafer level chip scale package for inertial sensors. He joined Carnegie Mellon University as a professor of electrical electronics engineering and is the owner of Fasmicro, Intel’s only programmable microprocessor knowledge partner in Africa.

An inventor, he will lead this university, and bring partners he has built in the semiconductor industry. Through Tekedia Capital, we recently invested in Felafax which is creating an alternative to Nvidia by unifying non-CUDA systems. We also invested in Entangl which is super amazing. If NUC plays along, we  have the funds and will  deliver. Everything we need, we have. But the licensing path is challenging for us because our American friends do not want to build a campus before a license.

Comment 3: Ndubuisi Ekekwe, why not run this in partnership with your former department @ FUTO? Although issues of vested interests will come up, that will be manageable compared with NUC bottlenecks.

My Response: The current model of university system does not align for us. Our model is largely free tuition where students pay post graduation, and we wil lbe responsble to help on job placement. We do not need a lot of students, but it has to be a university to attract the smartest kids.

Comment 3b: Ndubuisi Ekekwe what about universities like covenant and landmark. If we can think it, it can be done.

My Response: They charge tuition also and some of the brightest may not afford them. We have invested in close to 150 companies worldwide. We do not think it would be an issue to place students on decent paying jobs. All we need is to understand their needs and align our training to meet those needs and beyond.

With Tekedia Capital, we have something no university in Nigeria has which is an amalgam of companies within our network. We will also have some of those firms open branches in the campus.

*this has to be a university to attract the smartest kids.

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