MTN Zambia and Huawei claim power backup breakthrough

Details: Vaughan O'Grady; Category: Energy & Sustainability; 13 November 2025; 34187 views

Operator MTN Zambia and tech company Huawei have jointly launched what is claimed to be the world’s first AI-powered adaptive power backup solution for emergency resilient networks.

The solution is meant to address the challenge of keeping communication services online amid unstable power supply, something that is highly relevant to landlocked Zambia, which has had to deal with a significant energy crisis since March 2024 due to insufficient hydropower. This can mean up to 20 hours of power outages daily, an issue that has disrupted both industry and consumers across the country.

MTN Zambia specifically has seen a significant network availability decline, in some cases from 99% to as low as 91%.

According to the MyBroadband news resource, this solution, introduced at the recent AfricaCom 2025 event in Cape Town, represents a major industry breakthrough that combines intelligent energy management with network autonomy to enhance resilience and sustainability in regions that frequently experience power outages.

Specifically, adaptive power backup enables coordination between the power system and the wireless network. By analysing real-time service traffic and prioritising essential communications, it dynamically adjusts power usage and gradually suspends non-critical functions to ensure that vital services remain available. Once grid power is restored, services automatically resume.

This emergency solution is claimed to involve simple deployment, cost saving (as it doesn’t require new lithium batteries, solar panels or distributed generation expansion) and intelligent evolution.

It was successfully tested in an area severely affected by power outages in Zambia, where results showed that, even when daily power cuts exceeded six hours, site uptime could be extended by an additional three to six hours – without adding extra batteries or diesel generators.