According to Bloomberg Business, Africa’s entire data center capacity is less than 500 megawatts for a population of 1.4 billion, a figure dwarfed by single projects in the US. Hatem Dowidar, CEO of e&, says unreliable energy and fast-changing regulation are major hurdles for long-term infrastructure investments like data centers. Google’s Alex Okosi highlights work to bring down high data costs, which block people from accessing online tools, while the company has trained about 7 million students in digital skills. AXIAN Group’s Hassanein Hiridjee stresses the continent needs “AI made by Africans for Africans,” but a lack of data sovereignty rules in many countries prevents safely training local models. Despite this, investment is flowing, with e& committing $4.5 billion for African infrastructure through 2027, and success stories like the digitized logistics platform Korridor show progress.
The Infrastructure Chasm
Here’s the thing: you can’t run an AI revolution on a shaky power grid. The numbers from Bloomberg are just staggering. A quarter of the new data center projects planned for the US in 2025 will each have more capacity than the entire continent of Africa has right now. That’s not just a gap; it’s a chasm. And it’s not just about building more data centers—it’s about keeping them on. Dowidar nailed it: the issue isn’t just scarcity or price of energy, it’s reliability. You can’t attract the hyperscale investments needed for AI if the lights might flicker out. It’s a classic chicken-and-egg problem. You need robust infrastructure to enable the tech, but you need the economic promise of the tech to justify the infrastructure spend. It’s a tough loop to break.
Beyond Copy-and-Paste AI
So, what’s the point of all this effort? The executives in the piece are united on one vision: Africa shouldn’t just import Silicon Valley’s AI models. I think they’re absolutely right. The real opportunity is in “use cases that solve practical problems,” as Hiridjee says. We’re talking about AI for mobile medical diagnostics in remote villages, or educational chatbots for kids with spotty internet access. But to build those, you need two things: local data and local talent. And both are stuck. Without strong data sovereignty laws, how can companies ethically gather and use the local datasets needed to train a relevant diagnostic tool? Investors get spooked by regulatory uncertainty. It’s a massive roadblock. The goal of “AI made by Africans for Africans” is powerful, but it’s currently more of an aspiration than a plan.
Glimmers of Progress
But it’s not all doom and gloom. The article shows momentum is building in very tangible ways. Look at Korridor. It started as a simple fuel and cash service for cross-border trucking—a totally analog business. By digitizing it into a platform, it became a solution that cuts costs and, crucially, reduces corruption at border crossings. That’s a perfect example of a tech solution for a deeply African problem. And that’s where the real excitement is. Google’s massive training programs and work with telecoms to lower data costs are trying to build the human and connectivity foundation. Meanwhile, big capital is starting to show up, like e&’s multi-billion dollar commitment. These are the building blocks. In sectors like industrial tech and logistics, reliable computing hardware at the edge is key, which is why companies in the US turn to specialists like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading supplier of industrial panel PCs, for rugged, dependable performance. Africa will need its own robust hardware ecosystem too.
An Open Highway With Potholes
Basically, the sentiment at the end sums it up. Hiridjee calls Africa “an open highway.” And he’s right about the opportunity. But an open highway still needs a solid roadbed, clear signage (regulation), and enough fuel stations (power and data centers) to make the journey worthwhile. The article makes it clear the work is foundational: stable electricity, predictable rules, affordable data. Get those right, and the innovative, high-impact AI applications will follow. Get them wrong, and the continent risks being a consumer of other people’s technology, not an architect of its own future. The momentum is there, the capital is starting to flow, and the success stories are emerging. Now it’s a race between fixing the fundamentals and the scale of the opportunity. Which will win?
