Why Africa must build its own AI giants - Op-Ed in Semafor
There’s a narrative out there that Africa is not well-placed to take part in today’s artificial-intelligence revolution. But this is wrong. It fundamentally misunderstands the continent’s unique position to become a major player in this transformative moment. AI isn’t just another technological wave — it’s rapidly becoming the foundation of all future value creation. But this also presents an existential challenge, one which often keeps me up at night. Think about the consequences when Africa’s call-centers and outsourcers are replaced by AI agents managed from outside the continent, with no jobs, GDP, nor taxes generated locally.
All industries will eventually face this challenge. We can either become producers of AI technology, capturing the tremendous value it creates, or remain mere consumers, watching our productivity gap with developed economies widen even further — to the point of becoming insurmountable. In Africa, AI is already present in our daily lives: In Senegal, where I’m from, many sellers in Dakar’s famous HLM street market now start their day with AI-powered TikTok connecting them to buyers that pay in mobile money.
Indeed, we are digitizing African economies during the AI era, creating fresh, structured data. With the world’s fastest growing digital-native, working-age population, Africa’s adoption curves are like no other. And we’ve done this before. In two decades, Africa went from 50 million bank accounts to over 600 million mobile money accounts.
At my venture firm Askya, we see this moment as another paradigm-shifting opportunity to participate in building an AI-native digital economy. While fintechs like Nigeria’s Moniepoint use proprietary data on billions of transactions it processes to lend to small businesses, South Africa’s Lelapa AI’s APIs helps companies engage with clients in African languages at a scale like never before.
Excerpt from an op-ed by Babacar Seck, originally published in Semafor Africa. Read the full article here
