There comes a moment in every great technology revolution when the late arrivals have to decide: accept the terms that are handed to them, or fight to write their own. Africa, it seems, has made the decision to fight. On the 9th and 10th of February 2026, at the Nairobi AI Forum in Kenya, the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) jointly launched the AI 10 Billion Initiative, which is a continental effort to mobilise up to $10 billion by 2035, unlock an estimated 40 million new jobs, and add as much as $1 trillion to Africa’s GDP.
Why this moment is different
In order to understand why the AI 10 Billion Initiative matters, one has to understand what Africa stands to lose if it simply watches the current wave from the shore. The GSMA reports that Africa accounts for just 2.5% of the global AI market. A 2024 Oxford Insights Government AI Readiness Index gave Sub-Saharan Africa a score of just 32.70 out of 100 , marginally better than the previous year, but still one of the worst performing regions in the world. Most painfully, over 83% of AI startup funding in the first quarter of 2025 flowed only to just four countries: Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt. The rest of the continent, with its 1.4 billion people and its extraordinary wealth of natural and human resources, is watching from the sidelines.
The infrastructure problem cannot be wished away
And yet, the most persistent challenge facing Africa’s AI ambitions is one that no announcement , no matter how well-intentioned ,can resolve overnight: infrastructure. The continent’s data centre capacity remains severely underdeveloped. More than two-thirds of that capacity sits in a single country, South Africa. Cloud computing is growing at a remarkable 25–30% annually, and Kenya is expanding its fibre optic network, but the honest picture is still one of deep fragmentation. Most of Africa’s health data, agricultural data, and financial data are stored and processed in servers that are located in Europe or the United States, not because African countries lack the data, but because they lack the infrastructure to hold it on their own terms.
This is not just a minor inconvenience. It is a structural vulnerability. A continent that generates its own data but cannot compute it locally is, in the language of the World Economic Forum, destined to be "shaped by others" instead of shaping its own future. The AI 10 Billion Initiative’s focus on regional data embassies and core data infrastructure is, therefore, one of its most consequential dimensions.
The skills gap is a human story, not a statistic
Numbers about the AI skills gap in Africa are sobering. An ImpactHER survey that was conducted in 2024 found that 86% of women across 52 African countries lack basic AI proficiency. 60% have had no digital skills training at all. Half do not even have reliable internet access. These figures are not abstract. They represent the reality of a continent where the most transformative technology of the century is arriving faster than the education systems designed to prepare people for it.
The AI 10 Billion Initiative targets skills development as one of its core investment pillars, and this is welcome. However, investing in skills without fixing the structural barriers, electricity access, device ownership, connectivity, language is almost like building a road that stops at the edge of a village. It gets you close, but not close enough. It is worth noting that Africa holds the world’s youngest population. The median age on the continent is under 20. These are not people who need to be convinced that technology matters. They are people who are in need of the tools, the training, and the institutional backing to build with it.
What success looks like, and what it does not
The targets that are attached to the AI 10 Billion Initiative are impressive: 40 million jobs by 2035, $1 trillion added to GDP, and a continent positioned as a global hub for AI innovation. Whether these numbers are achieved will depend on choices that are made years before 2035, on whether the $10 billion materialises in the form of genuine long-term capital or short-cycle funding that will evaporate when the political moment passes; on whether the investments reach Tier 3 countries like Zambia and Uganda, which the AI readiness data shows are falling behind, or concentrate in the same four ecosystems that already able to absorb most of the continent’s tech investment; on whether skills programmes are built for rural women in Malawi as much as for startup founders in Nairobi.
There are reasons for cautious optimism. The initiative comes with a continent-wide roadshow over the next ten months, and it is designed to engage governments, private sector actors, and development partners in genuine partnership rather than passive reception. Italy, Kenya, the European Union, UNDP, and the AfDB sat together on the launch panel, a signal, at least, of international seriousness. The GPU hours being offered to 130 African innovators through Cineca’s AI Hub, including for climate resilience and local-language AI, show an understanding that the technology must be adapted to African contexts rather than simply transplanted from outside.
*Sesona Mdlokovana
Associate at BRICS+ Consulting Group
Africa Specialist
**The Views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Independent Media or IOL.
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