… Tijani calls for investment in local capacity to drive productivity

Akinwumi Adesina, former president of the African Development Bank, has proposed a $10 billion African Artificial Intelligence Frontier Technology Fund as the anchor for a $50 billion investment drive over the next 10 years, warning that Africa risks becoming a market for technologies developed elsewhere unless it invests in its own research, infrastructure and technology businesses.

Adesina presented the proposal at the 2026 Oxford Global Think Tank Leadership Conference, where he called for long-term financing to support the continent’s scientific, technological and industrial development.

Speaking during his keynote address at the conference, themed “Leadership for a Prosperous Future”, he said Africa must move beyond adopting technologies developed elsewhere to becoming a creator, owner and exporter of artificial intelligence innovations.

He said the question facing the continent was whether it would capture the economic value and intellectual property generated by artificial intelligence or remain dependent on technologies developed by other countries.

“We must decide whether Africa will simply become a market for technologies developed elsewhere, or whether we will become creators, owners and exporters of the technologies transforming the global economy,” he said.

Adesina said the African Development Bank estimated that generative artificial intelligence could add between $61 billion and $103 billion in economic value to Africa. However, he warned that the continent would not automatically benefit from this potential without investment and coordinated action.

He cited Stanford University’s 2025 Artificial Intelligence Index, which reported that global investment in artificial intelligence reached $252.3 billion in 2024, including $151 billion in private investment. Nearly 90 per cent of notable artificial intelligence models released that year came from industry.

He said the figures showed the scale of investment by countries and companies seeking to develop the technology and capture its economic opportunities.

According to him, Africa must pursue two objectives: use artificial intelligence to improve productivity in existing industries and develop its own technologies, businesses and intellectual property for commercialisation and export.

He identified agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare, education, energy and financial services as sectors where artificial intelligence could improve productivity, reduce costs and strengthen service delivery.

In agriculture, he said the technology could help farmers make better decisions on soil, water and weather conditions, while its application in manufacturing could improve production efficiency and reduce operating costs.

Adesina warned that dependence on imported technologies could leave much of the intellectual property and economic value outside Africa, limiting the continent’s ability to develop industries, generate export revenue and influence its technological future.

“Every year Africa postpones building its own technological capacity is another year in which others can capture a greater share of the economic opportunity,” he said.

Under the proposed financing structure, the $50 billion investment ambition would comprise $10 billion for the African Artificial Intelligence Frontier Technology Fund, $15 billion from African governments, $15 billion from multilateral and African development finance institutions, and $10 billion from private investors, philanthropic partners and the global technology industry.

The $10 billion fund would provide financing for research, critical infrastructure, frontier technologies and African technology enterprises. It would serve as the anchor for the wider $50 billion mobilisation target over the 10-year period.

Adesina proposed that the fund be mobilised through development finance institutions, African governments, philanthropic organisations, financing partners and institutional investors. Its capital structure would include paid-in capital, concessional resources, callable commitments and risk instruments.

African governments would provide $15 billion through phased commitments over 10 years, taking into account national priorities and fiscal capacity.

Multilateral and African development finance institutions would contribute another $15 billion through loans, equity investments, guarantees, concessional financing and risk-sharing arrangements. Private investors, philanthropic partners and global technology companies would provide the remaining $10 billion through institutional investments, venture capital, project financing and commercial partnerships.

To coordinate the effort, Adesina proposed a Coalition for Financing Artificial Intelligence in Africa, bringing together the World Bank, African Development Bank, other multilateral development banks, African development finance institutions, governments, institutional investors and technology companies.

He said the proposed platform should direct financing towards three areas: research, talent and public infrastructure; frontier technologies and African enterprises; and strategic infrastructure supported by blended finance and risk-sharing arrangements.

The investments would support universities and research centres, expand computing facilities, provide scholarships and fellowships, develop African language technologies and improve electricity and digital infrastructure.

He also called for financing to help African technology companies commercialise research, develop intellectual property, expand their operations and compete in international markets.

Adesina said Africa’s ability to compete in artificial intelligence would depend on access to electricity, affordable connectivity, computing capacity, secure digital systems and high-quality data.

He cited Mission 300, a partnership between the African Development Bank and the World Bank Group aimed at providing electricity access to 300 million Africans by 2030. He said more than 50 million people had already been connected.

He also referred to the Africa Energy Summit held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in January 2025, where development partners pledged more than $50 billion to accelerate energy access.

He said the level of commitment demonstrated through Mission 300 should also be applied to developing the energy and digital infrastructure needed to support artificial intelligence.

Adesina called for investment in mathematics, science, computational thinking, robotics, data science and engineering, saying Africa’s young population would become an economic advantage only when equipped with the skills and opportunities to innovate.

He urged African governments to consider appointing ministers responsible for artificial intelligence to coordinate national action across education, research, infrastructure, industry, investment and public services.

He said the African Union’s adoption of a continental Artificial Intelligence Strategy in July 2024 provided a framework for action, but called for a shift from policy commitments to implementation.

Also speaking at the conference, Bosun Tijani, Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, said the ability of African countries to translate technological advances into higher productivity and improved living standards would determine whether artificial intelligence delivered shared prosperity.

Tijani said prosperity depended on how effectively societies applied knowledge to the resources available to them. He argued that natural resources, labour and capital alone could not guarantee economic growth without improvements in technical efficiency.

He said science, technology and knowledge enabled economies to produce more from existing resources, improve the efficiency of businesses and public services, support enterprise growth and raise incomes.

Using Nigeria’s telecommunications expansion as an example, the minister said the spread of mobile phones had changed how individuals and businesses communicated, conducted transactions, coordinated suppliers, arranged deliveries and reached customers.

He said these changes might appear small at the level of individual transactions, but their combined effect across millions of people and businesses had transformed economic activity.

The telecommunications experience, he said, also demonstrated the importance of collaboration between government and the private sector. Public policy created an environment for businesses to invest, expand infrastructure and develop services.

Tijani said artificial intelligence represented the next frontier of productivity because it extended the ability of individuals and businesses to recognise patterns, interpret information, generate content and support decision-making.

He illustrated its potential economic impact with agriculture, comparing farming practices in Nigeria and Brazil, where he said technology and artificial intelligence were being used to improve farm operations.

He argued that differences in the application of knowledge and technology could produce significant variations in output from similar resources, putting Nigerian producers at a disadvantage when competing with countries that achieve higher productivity at lower costs.

For artificial intelligence to deliver broad economic benefits, Tijani said countries must develop what he described as “absorptive capacity” the ability of an economy to absorb technological advances and translate them into productive activities and shared prosperity.

He identified connectivity, computing and data infrastructure, data, skills and research capabilities, and strong institutions as the foundations required to build that capacity.

The minister said Nigeria was expanding fibre-optic connectivity and developing shared computing capacity that would be available to researchers across the country.

He also highlighted the government’s plan to train three million technical talents and its efforts to develop a Nigerian language model as part of initiatives to strengthen the country’s artificial intelligence ecosystem.

However, Tijani said government investment and policy reforms alone would not create the opportunities expected from artificial intelligence.

He said businesses, researchers, universities and other institutions must build on the infrastructure and enabling environment provided by government to develop solutions, establish enterprises and create jobs.

Drawing a parallel with telecommunications, he said private businesses had built services and created opportunities on the foundation provided by public investment and reforms. He said a similar response was needed for artificial intelligence to deliver economic benefits.

His argument reflected Adesina’s position that Africa’s technological ambitions must be matched by the capacity to develop and commercialise its own innovations rather than remain dependent on imported technologies.

Adesina said decisions taken by African leaders would determine whether the continent’s young people became creators of technologies shaping the global economy or remained dependent on innovations developed elsewhere.

He said the proposed $10 billion fund and the wider $50 billion investment ambition should be assessed by the scientific discoveries, companies, intellectual property, skilled jobs and economic opportunities they generate.

“Africa must not simply be a market for the AI revolution. We must be among its architects,” he said.