American Tower and PowerX Announce Strategic Partnership to Drive Sustainability in the African Telecommunications Industry Through Innovative AI Solutions

JOHANNESBURG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--American Tower Corporation’s African subsidiary (ATC Africa) and PowerX today announced a strategic partnership that will bring the significant efficiency and environmental benefits of PowerX’s artificial intelligence (AI) solutions to Africa’s telecommunications industry by optimizing energy usage at tower sites. After a successful joint program, ATC Africa employed PowerX’s AI analytics across a select number of sites in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, and Uganda.

Roll-out of PowerX’s AI platform has brought enhanced insight into the power management and analysis of ATC Africa’s sites. The platform leverages PowerX’s ability to analyze data to optimize ATC’s site performance, ensuring maximum greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction.

ATC Africa is committed to providing connectivity while substantially reducing reliance on fossil fuels through the deployment of new sites that adhere to low GHG emissions site specifications, in accordance with its science-based targets (SBTs). Marek Busfy, SVP and Chief Executive Officer, ATC Africa stated, “To date, ATC Africa has invested over $300 million in energy efficiency improvements, renewable energy deployments and energy storage solutions to reduce the use of fossil fuels at our sites. Our strategic partnership with PowerX will place us at the forefront of the industry by leveraging the innovative power of AI data-led solutions to optimize the use of power and reduce GHG emissions. I am confident our strategic partnership will grow and contribute to our science-based targets to reduce GHG emissions by at least 40% by 2035 against a 2019 baseline and deliver on our low GHG emissions site strategy.”

PowerX’s CEO, Andrew Schafer said, “Our alliance with ATC will set bold new industry standards for tower energy efficiency. AI-driven analytics uniquely lead the way in efficiently managing power and providing accurate and auditable records in environmental sustainability such as how much diesel and GHG emissions have been eliminated from site operations. We apply sophisticated machine learning and pattern recognition tools to existing site data to identify inefficiencies and anomalies previously buried deep in fragmented data sets. We are excited to bring these benefits to ATC Africa and to Africa’s burgeoning telecommunications industry, setting an ambitious benchmark for site efficiency and sustainability.”

About American Tower

American Tower, one of the largest global REITs, is a leading independent owner, operator and developer of multitenant communications real estate with a portfolio of approximately 223,000 communications sites and a highly interconnected footprint of U.S. data center facilities. For more information about American Tower, please visit the “Earnings Materials” and “Investor Presentations” section of our investor relations website at www.americantower.com.

American Tower in Africa

We established our presence in Africa in 2011 and today operate more than 23,000 sites across Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda. Our customers include the region’s leading Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). Access to broadband services has helped unlock an array of new opportunities and services that are enhancing the livelihoods of Africans, spurring Africa’s economic growth, and advancing the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda for the continent.

Cautionary Language Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains “forward-looking statements” concerning American Tower’s goals, beliefs, expectations, strategies, objectives, plans, future operating results and underlying assumptions and other statements that are not necessarily based on historical facts. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by the use of words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “potential,” “seek,” “should,” “think,” “will,” “would” and similar expressions, or they may use future dates. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated in American Tower’s forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including those factors set forth in Item 1A of its Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, as updated in American Tower’s Form 10-Q for the nine months ended September 30, 2022, each under the caption “Risk Factors.” American Tower undertakes no obligation to update the information contained in this press release to reflect subsequently occurring events or circumstances.

PowerX Technology, a UK-based company, is redefining tower performance with artificial intelligence. It is the first solution dedicated to the tower industry to put data intelligence at the heart of tower management decisions, facilitating resilient and sustainable mobile connectivity growth. With PowerX, tower operators can monitor, control and apply continuous site-level efficiencies at scale for thousands of towers across entire networks. PowerX’s solutions help Tower Companies and Mobile Operators around the world harness data intelligence to build infrastructure resilience, optimise tower operations and maintenance, reduce site inefficiencies, diesel consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Find out more: www.powerx.ai