Elisha Bala-Gbogbo

Journalist @Reuters. Ex- @business. Inbox open. Pan-African. Music lover. Arsenal, basketball & @F1. Opinions are mine, and mine alone.

[Elisha Bala-Gbogbo @ElishaBG]

'One after another, they started dying': survivors recount ordeal after death in detention of 37 miners in Nigeria https://t.co/KswYFRCcqz

[Elisha Bala-Gbogbo @ElishaBG]

Ahead of the ​2027 general election in January, opposition politicians have made fuel prices a central test of the government's ‌economic ⁠record.

Rising fuel prices revive cost-of-living pressure in Nigeria ahead of 2027 election https://t.co/eUX6sfsDal

[Elisha Bala-Gbogbo @ElishaBG]

@max_audius @m8arteta I'm not going to lose my head over today's result. Just a bump in the road. We were awful, Brighton were terrific. On to the next

[Elisha Bala-Gbogbo @ElishaBG]

Africa's biggest ever IPO is fuelling a wave of viral memes portraying even the smallest investors as newly ‌minted captains of industry and personal advisers to the continent's richest man.

'Call Dangote, we need a board meeting': Nigerian refinery IPO sparks meme frenzy https://t.co/kofBd6E788

[Elisha Bala-Gbogbo @ElishaBG]

Nigeria forces open fire at protest over deaths of detained 37 miners https://t.co/DOqn6Itv32

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

By now, it's amply clear that the big bosses of US frontier AI labs are really, really scared of China.

And, fascinatingly, part of the answer why might be a tiny place in Inner Mongolia that you've probably never heard of: Ulanqab prefecture.

Heard of it? Didn't think so.

Even myself, who's traveled to Inner Mongolia twice, had never heard of it before researching this story.

This is because, at first glance, this place is pretty unremarkable. Check its Wikipedia page (https://t.co/QviNOPyRbP) and you’ll see the only thing it’s famous for is being the birthplace of He Pingping, who briefly held the Guinness record for world’s shortest man.

That’s it, that’s the list!

Otherwise, it's just a sparsely populated - 1.5 million people, minuscule by Chinese standards - stretch of windswept grassland on the Mongolian plateau.

Except there is one number that tells you there is more to this place that meets the eye: this tiny prefecture consumes nearly 1% of all of China's electricity - and that number is growing by double digit numbers every year.

And yes, I did write **consume**, not produce.

In fact, when you divide Ulanqab's electricity consumption by the number of households living there, each household in this remote corner of Inner Mongolia "consumes" about 105,000 kWh in electricity, roughly 10 times the U.S. average. Insane electricity consumption numbers.

So what are the Ulanqabese doing? Are they all running 10 American households' worth of appliances?

Here is another number that might clue you in on the answer: over the past few years, this unremarkable prefecture has quietly signed over half a trillion yuan (and, yes, that’s trillion, with a "T") worth of investment deals from all the major Chinese tech giants.

What is going on, you'll have guessed by now, is the most ambitious data center buildup anywhere on earth - and it's really surprising this hasn't been talked about more because the scale is beyond anything else, and by an immense margin.

Take Elon Musk's so-called "Colossus" datacenter in Memphis, Tennessee which he pitches as "the world’s largest AI supercomputer."

According to their own numbers (https://t.co/DZvBvJioua), Colossus has 200,000 chips, which, let's be clear, is already super impressive.

In datacenter lingo, this converts to roughly 5000-6000 "racks": you know, the fridge-sized cabinets full of blinking lights you see in every movie scene set in a server room.

How many racks are they building in Ulanqab? Over 5 million.

Yes, about one thousand times the scale of "Colossus" 🤯

I tripled-checked the number: it is indeed the official number published by authoritative sources such as "Science and Technology Daily", the official newspaper of China's Ministry of Science and Technology (https://t.co/PsbGlLbv5A).

This is an absurdly large amount of compute.

What we see appearing in this Inner Mongolian steppe may be the closest thing to a world brain humanity has ever built - a place where a large share of the world's thinking will physically happen.

And - as we'll see - what makes this story so fascinating is not just the scale, but why it's getting built in this particular patch of Inner Mongolian grassland which combines a number of characteristics unlike anywhere else.

If you believe, as I do - and as both China and the US obviously do as well - that AI will be the defining technology of the 21st century, this makes Ulanqab one of the single most relevant geopolitical places in the world right now.

The full story - the Chinese government plan Ulanqab is part of, energy prices, chips and the strategic questions this raises - is here: https://t.co/iqvSvcaOGc

[Elisha Bala-Gbogbo @ElishaBG]

Safe to say setbacks have become a routine part of Ferrari race week. If Leclerc is not crashing or forcing Lewis off track, the team is busy self-sabotaging Lewis’s race or, as seen today, handing him a brake failure on lap six. As a Lewis fan, I can only imagine the sheer pain and frustration the Tifosi have endured over the past two decades dealing with an incompetent team that seems to lack both the ability and the drive to win.

[Elisha Bala-Gbogbo @ElishaBG]

Year two of following to Ferrari, seeing their lack of structure, recurring tactical errors and inability to mount a sustained championship challenge up close has been eye-opening. It has given me a whole new appreciation for the relentless heartbreak and frustration the Tifosi have endured for nearly two decades. Poor fans.

[Uwa @UwaAjayi]

Dear Nigerians, I need you to help me get @MTNNG attention as every means we have tried has failed. Help me repost as many times as possible.

Six days ago, my household purchased MTN fibre X because the remote job my sister got requested for a fibre network and specifically running at 300mbps. This was a criteria for getting the job which was to start on Monday, 7th of September, 2026.

MTN sent an installer to my house and after installation, the guy confirmed it was working and running on 50mbps, we immediately corrected him that we paid for the premium plan, a hundred thousand naira, which is 300mbps, while the basic plan (50mbps) is 30 thousand naira.

He simply said, that's a back end problem, my job here is done.

Since Last week Saturday till now MTN has refused to do anything about it. We have called their care line over 300 times and have sent series of emails. We have sent several messages here on X per their request, yet they leave us hanging the moment we send the details they need with no tangible solution or response.

One week has gone out of a one month plan my sister has been unable to use. I beg MTN To either refund us, or fix this situation and the data must start counting from when it was fixed.

MTN at this point send your installer to come and take the router away, the same way you sent them to install it. @MTNNG
@fccpcnigeria @NgComCommission

[Elisha Bala-Gbogbo @ElishaBG]

Boom! That Tzolis assist sliced through the Chelsea defense like a hot knife through butter to set up an absolute sitter for Ødegaard. What a goal!

[Elisha Bala-Gbogbo @ElishaBG]

@ScuderiaFerrari @LewisHamilton @Charles_Leclerc @peroniuk Understatement of the season. The Tifosi were clearly cheering for that Mercedes 1-2 all along, especially with the Kimi win

[Elisha Bala-Gbogbo @ElishaBG]

Take a bow, Kimi Antonelli! On a disastrous day at Monza for Italian titan Ferrari, the young Italian Mercedes driver surged from 19th on the grid to win the Italian Grand Prix and become the first home driver to triumph at Monza in 60 years! What a drive by Kimi!

[Elisha Bala-Gbogbo @ElishaBG]

What started as a promising weekend for Ferrari quickly turned into a nightmare. After inheriting second-row starts via Piastri’s penalty, intra-team drama struck on lap one saw Leclerc nearly take out Lewis, dropping him from 4th to 10th. To make matters worse, Leclerc then crashed out on the very next lap following a costly error of his own. Meanwhile, Mercedes turned a tough start on its head, vastly improving their points prospects in just two laps. Antonelli right back in the race at the restart, now up to 6th!!!

[Elisha Bala-Gbogbo @ElishaBG]

Mr. 'I must beat my teammate at all costs' forces Lewis into the gravel in the very first lap only to crash out of the race himself in the next lap. Good riddance.

[BudgIT Nigeria @BudgITng]

Must be a film trick.

Just weeks ago, the Finance Minister announced a transparency portal to help Nigerians track public money across all 774 LGAs.

Today, the Auditor-General says the Federal Government cannot provide sufficient evidence that ₦33.75 billion in cash transfers meant for more than 3.29 million vulnerable households reached genuine beneficiaries.

Meanwhile, government’s own reform scorecard counts social programmes among the areas where additional fiscal resources have been deployed. Our analysis of Nigeria’s Economic Reforms puts approximately ₦423.8 billion in incremental social-welfare initiatives, including NELFUND, CREDICORP and the MOFI Real Estate Investment Fund.

Maybe before building another dashboard, the Federal Government should make sure the money already being spent can actually be accounted for.

And while we’re at it, Mr President, the Federal Audit Service Bill is still waiting for your signature.

Want to know where the money is going? We’ve been tracking it. Explore our Nigeria’s Economic Reforms analysis 👇🏻https://t.co/ubhwEt7y2t

[Nigeria Stories @NigeriaStories]

JUST IN: The Federal Government could not provide sufficient evidence to auditors that N33.75bn in cash transfers meant for more than 3.29 million vulnerable households reached genuine beneficiaries, the Auditor-General for the Federation has said.

[Elisha Bala-Gbogbo @ElishaBG]

We were called paranoid, bitter, and crazy for pointing out the blatant rot.
​Mike Dean didn't reveal a secret, he just confirmed that the system was always rigged by self-serving ego. The PGMOL was never an elite officiating body. It is a protected, untouchable boys’ club that operate above the game, and quite frankly, unfit for purpose.

[Elisha Bala-Gbogbo @ElishaBG]

Many voters, however, judge the economy less by macroeconomic gains than by the cost of putting food on the table.
https://t.co/uTJHahlmqK

[Elisha Bala-Gbogbo @ElishaBG]

@raziakkhan It's an aspirational political soundbite rather than a realistic structural projection.