Experts in the tech industry have expressed concerns that African countries still lack the infrastructure to gain from the Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution currently driving economies across the globe.
They made the submission at the just concluded 2024 African Economic Conference (AEC) in Gaborone, Botswana.
Specifically, the Executive Secretary at the Timbuktoo Foundation, Natalie Jabangwe, said that despite the progress in digital inclusion and across the value chain on the continent, Africa is not ready in terms of infrastructure.
“There is a big buzz and hype about AI, but do we have the technological infrastructure to derive and gain the benefits of this evolution? No, not really.
“You can’t deliver a lot of these digital advancements if we don’t have power in countries, which is critical in building capacity in terms of solutions that will transform people’s lives,” said Jabangwe.
Early adoption issues
Head of AI and Machine Learning at the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in Rwanda, Alain Ndayishimiye, also raised concerns over the preparedness of the continent for this advanced technology, due to the lack of basic infrastructure such as electricity and data connectivity.
Using Rwanda as an example, he said the country, which has ambitions of becoming an AI powerhouse on the continent, is yet to make major progress on this advanced digital technology, and is still grappling with early adoption issues such as infrastructure, regulations, and other policy concerns.
“However, as Rwanda continues to register the progress that we have seen, its digital transformation journey needs to address some of the concerns including data quality, data privacy, and workforce readiness,” added Ndayishimiye.
Potential benefits of AI in Africa
Also speaking on the last day of the conference, Dr Pedro Conceicao, one of the authors of the upcoming 2025 Human Development Report (HDR), said Africa could reap the benefits of AI with the right infrastructure in place.
According to him, compared to the other regions, AI in sub-Saharan Africa is more likely to augment than substitute occupations and tasks.
“Instead of looking at AI and digital technologies as something that fascinates us by the extent to which it can perhaps surpass what people can do, the focus should be thinking through the institutions and the policies that we can implement to enable these technologies to augment what people can do. To augment human development,” said Dr Conceicao.
- Dr Conceicao admitted that there were already downsides to AI, including posing a problem of exclusion as many people are not represented in the information that is used to train these model, and job losses.
- But generally, he explained, there are more benefits than disadvantages, including lowering the barriers to entry that in the past would require very highly specialised skills, and helping firms grow rapidly.
What you should know
In Nigeria, the Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, has been aggressively pushing the government’s AI agenda with a series of initiatives aimed at empowering Nigerians in the AI space.
- These efforts have, however, attracted criticisms from a section of the tech community who believe that the country currently lacks the infrastructure to make any headway in AI.
- That notwithstanding, the government’s AI initiatives have attracted global tech companies like Google, which recently committed the sum of N2.8 billion to accelerate AI talent development across Nigeria.
- This followed an initial N100 million commitment from Google to the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR) AI Fund, which was announced in September.
