AI and technology

In February the General Assembly appointed a panel of 40 scientists to report on the risks and uses of AI. The vote was 117 to 2, with the United States and Paraguay against. Tunisia was one of two countries that abstained. The panel published a first report on 1 July. In the same month, delegates from 163 countries met in Geneva for the first Global Dialogue on AI Governance. Ministers from Gabon and Senegal co-chaired two of its four working groups, which gives Africa visible seats in the process.

At the Assembly in September, the Secretary-General called for binding international cooperation on AI. On 11 September he proposed a Global Fund for AI of about $3 billion over two to four years. It would pay for computing power, energy, internet links, data and public digital systems. The fund could sit inside or outside the UN. Its goals and its rules on who decides are to be settled during the current session of the Assembly. No government announced a pledge, so Africa still has time to shape how the money is spent.

African leaders said little about AI. The AU's published priorities for the week did not mention it, and Kenya's speech did not address it. South Africa asked for a final statement on AI with no money attached. The Secretary-General also said that weapons which choose and attack targets on their own must have no place in the future. The expert talks on these weapons, held under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), end at a review conference in Geneva from 16 to 20 November. Support for UN resolutions on such weapons fell from 164 states in 2023 to 156 in 2025. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) backed new binding rules in 2024.

Africa has 360 megawatts (MW) of data-centre capacity in use, 0.6% of the world total. Another 238 MW is being built and 656 MW is planned. The Africa Data Centres Association expects Africa's share to stay flat, because capacity elsewhere is growing faster. Electricity is now a bigger limit than internet links. In 2024 only 55.1% of people in sub-Saharan Africa had electricity. Outside South Africa, only about a third of the capacity already built is running.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that AI could raise the region's output by about 4% over ten years, if power, internet access and skills improve. Without those investments the gain would be about 0.2%. These are model estimates. They show that the return from AI depends on basic services that many African countries still lack.

Computing power for AI is scarce and mostly built by foreign firms. In June 2025, Cassava Technologies and the chipmaker Nvidia placed 3,000 graphics processing units (GPUs), the chips used to train AI, in South Africa. They plan 12,000 more across Egypt, Kenya, Morocco and Nigeria over three to four years, in a $700 million programme. A survey by the UN Development Programme found that only 5% of African AI practitioners have the computing power they need. About $1,000 a month in cloud credit buys two hours a day on an older Nvidia chip.

Internet links have improved, but use has not caught up. The 2Africa undersea cable, switched on in November 2025, reaches 33 countries. It carries more capacity than all of Africa's other undersea cables combined. Meta designed and led it, with the telecoms firms Bayobab of MTN, Orange, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone and WIOCC. Even so, only 35.7% of people in sub-Saharan Africa used the internet in 2025, against 73.6% worldwide.

Africa has written many rules and applies them thinly. African ministers of information and communications technology adopted a Continental AI Strategy for 2025 to 2030 in June 2024, and AU leaders endorsed it in July. By April 2026, 17 African countries had adopted national AI strategies, and more than 40 have data protection laws. The AU's treaty on cyber security and personal data, the Malabo Convention, took nine years to gain the 15 ratifications it needed. It came into force in June 2023.

Kenya has at least 12 documented agreements or joint projects with large technology firms since 2023. They include content moderation for Meta through the contractor Sama, work with Microsoft on farming, and an August 2026 agreement between Amazon Web Services and Konza Technopolis. Most of the terms are unpublished. Investigators found no evidence that the government assessed the risks to personal data before signing.

The $1 billion Microsoft and G42 data centre in Kenya stalled. The site needed a third of the country's power, and the government could not commit to renting its capacity each year. On 19 August, Parliament passed the Business Laws (Amendment) Bill, which now awaits the President's signature. It makes the outsourcing firm answerable for any claim by its workers. In practice, this keeps client firms such as Meta out of reach of those claims. Kenya also replaced its 1.5% tax on digital services with a tax on foreign firms that have a significant economic presence in the country.

Nigeria spends about $850 million a year on cloud and hosting services abroad. Its new cloud policy seeks $250 million of private investment within 12 months and $750 million within 24. It also proposes a national marketplace through which government bodies buy together. Nigeria shows too how penalties get traded away. Its data protection commission fined Meta $32.8 million in February 2025. Under a settlement adopted by the Federal High Court in November 2025, the fine was set aside and Meta paid only the commission's legal fees. Orders to ask users' consent before targeting advertising at them were dropped.

South Africa hosts most of the continent's data-centre capacity and the Cassava AI centre. Yet it has only a policy framework and no adopted national AI strategy. Ethiopia adopted a strategy in 2024. It has enrolled 49.1 million people in its Fayda digital ID, aims for 90 million by 2027, and has run more than 194 million identity checks. Rwanda, Mauritius, Egypt and Tunisia were the first African countries with AI strategies. Senegal and Gabon now hold visible seats in the UN process.

Rules on AI written without African computing power, research and buying power will govern a dependence they do not end. Africa's bargaining power lies in what its governments buy, in its power grids and in access to its markets. Nigeria's spending on foreign cloud services, joined with that of other governments and tied to conditions, could support data centres in Africa. Nigeria already plans to pool government demand at home. Doing the same across borders would give investors the committed buyer that Kenya could not offer Microsoft and G42.

Work is the second concern. In June 2026 the International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted the first convention on decent work for people who earn through digital platforms. It includes a right to have automated decisions reviewed. Kenya's bill moves the other way. It invites a race between African countries to offer the weakest protection, just as demand for data-labelling work grows.

Secret deals and written-off fines teach firms that African rules can be bargained away one country at a time. That weakens every African government at the table, including those that enforce their laws.