How Africa can re-envision the future of artificial intelligence

Much has been said about artificial intelligence (AI) in Africa. However, the main questions are: As countries at the forefront of AI development consolidate their economic and productivity advantages, will Africa be left behind? What foundations do we need to build to deploy and scale AI in the first place? And how can AI enable African countries to leapfrog traditional development paths?

What is rarely said is that partnerships need to be reimagined to ensure that widespread AI has a real human-centered impact and, in turn, allows Africa to systematically meet the prerequisites for large-scale AI adoption. In the age of AI, partnership design is no longer a secondary consideration. This is a central determinant of whether innovation leads to inclusive and sustainable development.

This February, as the world gathers in New Delhi for the AI ​​Impact Summit, the first major global AI gathering to be held in the Global South, the Nairobi AI Forum will emerge as a key bellwether. It moves the global conversation from aspirations to implementation, and from broad principles to concrete systems, focusing on what needs to be built, how, and with whom.

The Nairobi AI Forum builds on the momentum of the “AI Hub for Sustainable Development” launched under Italy’s G7 Presidency and the Mattei Plan. The AI ​​Hub is supported by the Italian Ministry of Enterprise and implemented by UNDP in collaboration with the G7 and Kenya. Unlike traditional conferences, this forum is an intensive, action-oriented working session that forges market-based non-governmental development assistance partnerships between African innovators, governments, and private sector leaders from the G7 and European Union.

To this end, the Forum is comprised of three closely aligned working blocks: Unraveling AI infrastructure in the African context, building cross-border partnerships, and unlocking funding. Together, these blocks form a coherent pathway for transforming technological ambitions into investable, scalable systems.

At the heart of this approach is a simple but often overlooked reality: That is, AI adoption requires the ability to share enablers horizontally across sectors and use cases. These include reliable power, high-speed connectivity, affordable computing, sovereign data systems, robust safeguards, and a rich talent pipeline. Without these foundational layers, AI adoption will remain fragmented, costly, and limited to siled pilots.

In the age of intelligent systems, not just technological power but also sovereignty is at stake. For African countries, building sovereign AI capabilities does not mean technological isolationism. Rather, it means owning critical layers of the AI ​​stack while maintaining strategic independence and interoperability with global systems, standards, and markets in an era of deep interdependence. Without this balance, states are at risk of outsourcing not only their infrastructure but also their decision-making capabilities themselves. In this sense, sovereign AI is the foundation for democratic accountability, economic resilience, and long-term autonomy in development.

However, prevailing global infrastructure models often do not reflect African realities. Hyperscale data centers designed for other situations often require hundreds of megawatts of continuous power, far exceeding the grid capacity available in many countries. As a result, infrastructure is expensive, underutilized, has limited spillover into regional innovation ecosystems, and is poorly aligned with national development priorities.

The Nairobi AI Forum is centered around a different approach: an integrated AI ecosystem right-sized to the region’s energy availability, workloads, and talent, building on Africa’s vast renewable energy potential and strategically important mineral resources. Rather than pursuing capital-intensive hyperscale deployments, we focus on modular, distributed systems that scale with real-world demand and deliver immediate economic and social benefits.

Kate Calott, lead voice on AI Hub’s Private Sector Advisory Group and recent TIME 100 honoree, argues: “Africa must reject the ‘billion-dollar hyperscale trap’ and instead build containerized graphics processing unit (GPU) clusters of modular, sovereign infrastructure tailored to real-world demand and power availability, embedded within a full stack that includes connectivity, sovereign data pipelines, safeguards, and affordable systems. Do the math.”

This requires building across the entire AI stack, from data generation, management, and governance to computing infrastructure, skill development, model adaptation, and real-world use cases. Investments therefore need to be made not only in hardware, but also in sovereign data pipelines, public interest model development, regulatory and safety agencies, and upskilling the workforce at scale. Only by driving these layers together can African countries ensure that AI adoption leads to sustainable economic transformation rather than technology dependence.

Once the infrastructure is designed this way, partnerships begin to function differently. Innovation is driven by deployment and investment follows proven demand rather than speculative scale. This dynamic is already evident in the AI ​​Hub’s flagship programs, such as the AI ​​Infrastructure Builder Program and the Compute Accelerator Program, where actual deployment guides both technology design and capital allocation.

Innovators like DeepLeaf, born out of a partnership between Morocco and Italy and now expanding to Kenya, and Crane AI, which is scaling from Africa to the United Arab Emirates, are demonstrating how context-driven collaboration can accelerate adoption. Actual implementation reveals precise technical and market needs and creates a strong feedback loop between entrepreneurs, investors, infrastructure providers and governments. From food systems and climate resilience to health care delivery and public financial management, these systems anchor AI in everyday development outcomes rather than in the abstract.

Mr Vincenzo is Italy’s Ambassador-Elect to Kenya and Seychelles and Permanent Representative to UNEP and UN-Habitat. Mr. Tigo is Kenya’s technology envoy. Ms. Keysom is the Digital Programming Officer for UNDP’s Principal Digital Directorate.