Karim Beguir launched the artificial intelligence start-up InstaDeep in Tunisia in 2014 with just two computers and $2,000.

By 2023, it was an international operation bought by German laboratory BioNTech for $700 million.

"For the first time, we saw that a start-up launched in Africa with very limited resources could become a major international player," the French-Tunisian CEO, who co-founded the company with Tunisian self-taught IT enthusiast Zohra Slim, told AFP.

It gives young Africans the "hope of being part of tomorrow's innovation and technology," he said.

InstaDeep specialises in decision-making artificial intelligence (AI) that helps businesses develop applications to optimise cost and efficiency.

It made a name for itself at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic by creating a system with BioNTech -- which developed one of the earliest Covid vaccines -- to identify dangerous variants "on average two months before they are reported", according to data published in scientific journals.

InstaDeep put "Tunisia and Africa on the map (in AI). It showed that this kind of story was possible", added Beguir, 47, who is CEO of the company now based in London.