Africa AI News is now live
Sharing news and insights on Africa's AI journey
#Africa #news - Africa AI News, a brand new site sharing news and insights on Africa's AI journey, is now live. Modelled on the successful formula for Middle East AI News the new platform will provide government, business and technology decision-makers with news and insight, including coverage on investment, policy, education, adoption and research and development.
SO WHAT? - The stakes couldn't be higher for Africa as it enters the AI era, with both great opportunity and huge challenges. The biggest challenge for many African countries is the great digital divide and how to stop this widening with the rapid global adoption of AI. However, over the past couple of years we've seen a number of countries on the continent 'switch up a gear' in their efforts to embrace AI and use it to their advantage. It’s also evident that the number of technology-led investment initiatives seems to be growing fast, with both commercial investment and foreign direct investment via bilateral agreements. Among these, some high profile deals between African states and the UAE focusing on data infrastructure and AI.
There are numerous challenges and opportunities for Africa such as:
Challenges
Only 42% of the African population currently have Internet access
The African continent currently has fewer than 100 data centres (although it has 54 countries)
Africa has limited compute capacity and limited data sets for training AI
Opportunities
A recent report by The Brookings Institution found that Africa has the potential to become a global leader in software development by 2030
According to GitHub data, Nigeria and Egypt are among the top 10 fastest-growing countries for software development (2023)
AI could contribute over $1.2 trillion to Africa's GDP, although estimates vary
WHAT YOU GET - The Africa AI News product launching today is a weekly Africa AI News Digest, delivered to your email inbox every Friday morning! Just like the weekly Middle East AI News Digest, the Africa version provides you with a highly scannable news digest of AI and emerging tech news from across the African continent. We’ll include breaking news stories, links to companies in the news and download links to new reports and policy documents.
