Intelligent Telco Tower Optimisation: NEC XON and PowerX Join Forces Across Africa

Partnership Combines NEC XON's ICT Integration Expertise with PowerX's AI-Driven Energy Management Platform to Deliver Integrated Solutions for Africa's Telecommunications Sector

​NEC Africa and PowerX have announced a strategic partnership to deliver intelligent remote management system (RMS) and energy efficiency solutions for large, distributed telecommunications networks across Africa. The partnership combines NEC's proven track record of large-scale ICT delivery across Africa with PowerX's market-leading machine learning and AI analytics platform. The result is a single, accountable technology partner able to proactively manage the full cell site infrastructure lifecycle - from design and deployment through to ongoing operations and optimisation.
 
Says Chris Duvenage, Business Unit Manager: Digital, NEC XON: "We've spent the last two years evaluating platforms that could genuinely meet the needs of Africa's telecommunications operators. What impressed us about PowerX is that it goes well beyond power monitoring. It combines AI-driven predictive analytics, asset lifecycle optimisation, proactive maintenance and remote operational control into a single platform that enables NEC Africa to deliver a far more intelligent, end-to-end solution. Together, we will help operators reduce costs, improve network resilience and gain the visibility they need to manage critical infrastructure at scale across Africa."
 
Addressing Africa's critical infrastructure challenges
Africa's telecommunications sector faces significant operational pressures, including energy inefficiency, remote site management complexity, generator and power asset degradation, and infrastructure vulnerability - as well as vandalism and theft at Base Transceiver Station (BTS) sites. These challenges increase operational expenditure, reduce network uptime, and undermine the delivery of digital services to millions of subscribers.
 
"Partnering with NEC Africa gives PowerX the on-the-ground integration capability and pan-African reach to deploy our platform at scale across some of the continent's most demanding environments. Together, we are putting data intelligence at the heart of tower and site management decisions - driving down costs, improving performance and sustainability outcomes, and giving operators the visibility they need to perform,” says PowerX CEO, Andrew Schafer.

Andrew Schafer, CEO, PowerX 

​Plans go beyond the telco industry
The partnership isn’t limited to the telecommunications sector either. The solution holds significant cross-industry potential for commercial, retail, public sector, and industrial clients across Africa facing similar challenges with their critical infrastructure. Both companies see a clear opportunity to combine  NEC Africa's system integration expertise with PowerX's AI-driven energy management platform to yield key end-to-end efficiency benefits across commercial and industrial solar, smart city deployments, and energy-intensive enterprise infrastructure.

The combined solution delivers the PowerX hardware-agnostic AI SaaS platform integrated with proven IoT hardware, providing telecommunications operators with a single end-to-end fulfilment and implementation service enabling:

• Full site visibility and remote monitoring across BTS, power systems, and environmental conditions
• AI-driven energy optimisation, including generator, solar, batteries and hybrid power monitoring and fuel consumption tracking
• Embedded security and tamper-detection capabilities to combat infrastructure vandalism and theft
• Predictive and prescriptive maintenance to reduce unplanned downtime and operational expenditure
• Seamless interoperability with existing operator systems and third-party platforms
• SLA-backed support from local NEC Africa engineering teams, ensuring rapid response and continuous optimisation
• End-to-end field services capability spanning design, build, implementation, commissioning and ongoing maintenance - delivered by NEC Africa's established engineering teams across Sub-Saharan Africa.

 
"Our customers are looking for more than monitoring - they need actionable intelligence," Duvenage says. "By combining PowerX's advanced analytics with NEC Africa's engineering capability and pan-African delivery footprint, we're giving customers a single accountable partner that can implement, integrate and optimise complex infrastructure throughout its operational lifecycle." 
 
About NEC XON
NEC XON Systems is a leading African integrator of ICT solutions and part of NEC, a global Japanese firm. The company has operated in Africa since 1963 and delivers communications, energy, safety, security, and digital solutions. It co-creates social value through innovation to help overcome serious societal challenges. The organisation operates in 54 African countries and has a footprint in 16 of them. Regional headquarters are located in South, East, and West Africa. NEC XON Systems is a level 1-certified broad-based black economic empowerment (B-BBEE) business. 
Learn more at https://www.nec.africa/
 
About PowerX
PowerX is an AI-driven SaaS platform that optimises energy-related infrastructure at scale for telecommunications operators and tower companies globally. Combining domain expertise with advanced predictive and prescriptive analytics, PowerX enables operators to reduce operational and capital expenditure, improve energy efficiency, drive proactive maintenance, and meet sustainability targets. PowerX has partnered with leading tower companies and mobile network operators across multiple African markets. 
PowerX press enquiries: Richard Topping ([email protected]). Website: www.powerx.ai
 
Issued by: Michelle Oelschig, Scarlet Letter 
Contact details: 083-636-1766, [email protected]