Breaking News Today – Tuesday 17 March 2026

Business News Today 

Nvidia’s Super Bowl Highlights Growing AI Momentum

At Nvidia’s developer conference yesterday, CEO Jensen Huang outlines a massive demand projection for 2026: He updated last year’s $500B in “high-confidence” orders for the company’s latest Blackwell and Rubin AI processors through 2026, saying he now sees at least $1 trillion in orders for Blackwell and Vera Rubin systems through 2027. This reflects exploding hyperscaler/enterprise demand and positions inference as potentially a trillion-dollar opportunity in chips alone. Huang also spoke of an AI shift emphasis: Inference is exploding as the real money-maker now (post-training phase), with agentic systems needing fast, efficient reasoning. He reiterated AI as foundational infrastructure, with every company/nation building it across the full stack (compute, models, apps). The broader vision for Nvidia includes potential orbital AI datacentres (“space computing”) to extend accelerated computing beyond Earth, plus robotics as the bridge to physical AI.

Kenya’s KCB Group Looking For Ethiopia Entry

KCB, East Africa’s largest commercial banking group by assets, is looking to enter the Ethiopian banking space and is shaping up as one of the more intriguing cross-border banking moves in East Africa right now. Fresh off reporting a record profit after tax of $544 million for FY 2025, with an 11% jump driven by stronger lending and tight cost control, the Nairobi-based lender is accelerating its regional expansion. Group Finance Director Lawrence Kimathi confirmed in a recent NTV Kenya interview that KCB has wrapped up shortlisting and identified a specific target bank for acquisition in Ethiopia, explicitly ruling out a slower greenfield build.

The goal outlined by Kimathi, is to enter before the end of 2026, ideally with a controlling stake to hit the ground running in one of Africa’s fastest-growing (but still largely closed) banking markets. Ethiopia’s recent liberalisation, via a newly passed proclamation, allows foreign banks into the market. There are restrictions with the National Bank of Ethiopia capping foreign ownership at 49% in most cases. KCB is eyeing an exemption for “well-established, reputable” players to secure majority control, drawing lessons from Safaricom’s bumpy telecom entry (regulatory hurdles, settlement delays) to avoid similar pitfalls.

Optasia Posts Remarkable Financial Results and Acquires Finergi

AI-powered fintech company, Optasia, (previously Channel VAS), listed on the Johannesburg Stock exchange, yesterday, published a remarkable set of full year results for the twelve-month period ended 31 December 2025. The company that saw a 20% stake buy-in from FirstRand in the past year, hit a 76% growth in revenue last year, with EBITA seeing a 52% growth on the previous year. The company also announced that they had signed an agreement to acquire Finergi Holdings Limited, a specialist real-time payment clearance fintech, via its subsidiary, CVAS International Limited, for an initial upfront consideration of R497.6 million ($30.0 million).

Finergi provides real-time credit access through prepaid electricity systems. Its platform enables prepaid meters to function as digital wallets, allowing customers to access credit via a mobile request that is reconciled with their next top-up and enhancing revenue assurance for the utilities provider. Finergi supports financial inclusion by partnering with utility providers, governments, and financial service partners to deliver short-term access to essential services through prepaid metering, mobile money, USSD, and digital channels – without requiring a bank account or established credit history. The credit is provided as an advance with a flat fee, with no interest or late fees charged.

Breaking Business and Market News Shorts:  

• Fuse, an AI-native loan origination system (LOS), announced that it has raised $25 million in a Series A funding round, led by Footwork, Primary Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, and Commerce Ventures. LOS serves as the primary system of record for most lenders, managing the entire loan life cycle: from initial application and underwriting to final approval and credit disbursement.
• India’s BSE Sensex rose about 0.4% to around 75,793 today, extending gains for a second straight session despite market volatility, even as higher crude prices linked to Middle East tensions tempered sentiment. Non-energy minerals, communications, and electronic technology sectors led gains
• The U.S. government yesterday said electric vehicle maker Tesla and South Korea’s LG ​Energy Solution had signed a supply agreement to ‌build a $4.3 billion lithium iron phosphate (LFP) prismatic battery cell manufacturing facility in Lansing, Michigan, with an expected production launch in 2027.
• Hong Kong shares surged 365 points, or 1.4%, to 26,192 in early morning trade today, extending the prior session’s rally and notching a two-week high. Sentiment was buoyed by Wall Street’s rebound overnight and oil prices slipping below USD 100 per barrel. In China.
• Gold edged higher to around $5,020 per ounce in early trade today, but remained close to its lowest level in nearly a month, as traders continued to assess the impact of the Middle East conflict on the outlook for inflation and monetary policy.

Markets by Numbers 

Currency markets indicate the US dollar strengthening against major currencies today. The Greenback is trading against the Euro at 1.14846 while trading against the Pound at 1.32976. The Yen is currently trading at 159.35 to the dollar. The rand (ZAR) continues to fall against the dollar, and currently trading at R16.70 against the US dollar.

Commodities:  

• Gold futures are gaining some traction after a dip yesterday, and currently trading slightly higher at around $5028.38 per ounce.  
• Copper prices are trending marginally lower today, with prices currently around $5.7809 per pound
• Silver futures are trending over 0.8% higher today, and currently trading at around $81.448 per ounce.
• Platinum futures are trending over 2% higher this morning, and currently trading at $2140.00, While Palladium prices are trending over 1% higher this morning, and currently trading around $1627.00 per ounce.
• Brent crude oil prices are surging and up by almost 4% this morning, with prices currently at $104.15 with WTI trading at $97.38 – up by over 4% today.
• Cocoa futures are trending higher, up by over 3.7% this morning, and currently trading around $3418 per ton. 
• Coffee futures are trending marginally higher today, and trading at around $2.9312 per pound

Crypto Currencies: 

• Bitcoin prices are trending around -1.1% lower this morning, and trading at around $73 9999 per coin currently 
• Ether prices have dipped by around -2% today, and currently trading around $2306.63
• $Trumpcoin are currently trading higher at around $3.708

(All prices quoted at approximately 07H55 Central African Time) 

African General News Briefs:

• The Ethiopian government has called on citizens and institutions to avoid unnecessary fuel consumption and has announced measures to stabilise supply and combat illegal trade. Ahmed Shide, the Minister of Finance, described the price increase as ‘alarming’ and outlined measures to prevent a major crisis. The Ethiopian government plans to increase fuel subsidies to keep prices affordable, purchase additional petroleum products to prevent supply shortages, and launch a national crackdown on illegal fuel trade,
• DRC president Félix Tshisekedi has signed a new decree-law, establishing a brand-new specialised court that will deal with economic and financial crimes such as corruption and money laundering.The new court will aim to strengthen the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) judicial system in the fight against financial and economic crimes, which are widespread in the country. Previously, cases of irregularities and crimes that financial authorities forwarded to the judicial system often failed to prosecute, with prosecutors and magistrates lacking the expertise to deal with these cases.
• The United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) biggest port and oil storage facility, Fujairah, and Dubai’s international airport have come under further drone attacks as Iran continues to target Gulf transport and oil infrastructure. All Flights were temporarily suspended yesterday after a fire broke out near the airport after a “drone-related incident”. A fire also raged after a drone attack on the strategically important port and industrial zone at Fujairah, one of the largest oil storage facilities in the region.