Bluechip Technologies announces the acquisition of YarnGPT at the Bluechip Data and AI Summit

African IT firm Bluechip Technologies announced the acquisition of YarnGPT at the Bluechip Data and AI Summit, held in Lagos, Nigeria, on 10 June. The announcement, made by Kazeem Tewogbade, Co-founder and CEO of Bluechip, on the main stage of the summit, was met with apparent excitement from the audience.

YarnGPT, a text-to-speech AI model that can read text aloud in a Nigerian accent and in at least four Nigerian languages, including Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa, was founded by Saheed Azeez, a University of Lagos alumnus who participated in and was awarded the first runner-up prize at the Bluechip Data and AI Hackathon in 2023.

Tewogbade added that as it progresses, Bluechip will build and acquire more products that serve its customers and fit into its ecosystem, which already includes Bluechip Data Platform, Cribro, BluPrime, and CashComplete.

The acquisition is notable for more than its commercial logic. It validates the work of African AI startups and emphasises that Africa’s role in the AI space does not need to replicate Western models. There is room for more innovative solutions that fit into Africa’s cultural context.

Additionally, YarnGPT’s path from hackathon to acquisition is uncommon in Nigeria’s AI ecosystem, and it highlights a way of identifying and absorbing local talent.

Africa’s opportunity in the AI race

The third edition of the Bluechip Data and AI Summit, themed, The Future, Now. AI-Driven Transformation for Africa gathered important voices to contribute to the growing conversation about what artificial intelligence means for Africa’s economic future and the role African companies can play in this growing environment.

The event featured leaders in technology, data, and artificial intelligence, like Rosanne Werner, Founder/CEO, XCelerate IQ, who gave a riveting keynote speech; Fola Olatunji-David, Founding Partner, Kickoff Africa; Victoria Ajayi, Group Managing Director/CEO, TVC Communications; Kola Aina, Founding Partner, Ventures Platform Fund, and Jonathan Woolf, Chief Revenue Officer, Intent HQ.

Several panels and breakout sessions at the event focused on building AI products, scaling AI in business, and building AI infrastructure. The hall was filled with a largely young audience, a demographic that represents Africa’s biggest offering to the evolving technology landscape — young talent.

Olumide Soyombo, Co-founder, Bluechip Technologies, noted that this is where one of the biggest opportunities lies for Africa to enter the AI market.

“We are not going to build a trillion-dollar data centre in this market in the next couple of years, because the funding is focused on the US and developed markets. But we have something that they don’t have, and that something is in the room today,” he said, referring to the thousands of young people sitting in the hall.

The conversation surrounding Africa’s role in the global AI conversation has continued to evolve. While some argue that African companies have the capacity to compete with the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic, others note that several other areas require attention, which African companies must explore.

“There is a lot of opportunity at the infrastructure layer. I’m talking about the hard stuff like compute data centres, connectivity, and all the stuff that will power most of the things the people in this room are already working on. But perhaps the biggest opportunity is building companies that are AI-native or AI-enabled and can gain an unfair advantage leveraging AI,” Aina highlighted during the fireside chat with Soyombo.

As Aina emphasised, there is a plethora of problems to be solved, and YarnGPT is a prime example of what is possible with AI in Africa if builders and investors look beyond the usual. The most popular AI models are primarily trained on Western data and designed for Western contexts; hence, a Nigerian AI tool built solely on Nigerian data is crucial to placing Africa on the AI map.

A look at the future

Soyombo and Tewogbade began building Bluechip Technologies 18 years ago. Now, the company has grown into a pan-African IT firm operating across nine countries and serving over 50 corporate clients, with offerings spanning tax solutions, analytics, and data management.

The acquisition of YarnGPT marks a deliberate shift from AI-enabled services to AI product ownership.

“I entreated the founders and startups that they should be ready for acquisitions, if they have products and services that complement what we do,” Tewogbade said at a press briefing during the event.