Africa must end the Al extraction economy now

Africa stands at a critical crossroads in the global Artificial Intelligence (AI) economy. If the continent fails to act with conviction, it risks repeating a familiar, extractive pattern: being positioned as a consumer and a supplier of raw data while global powers and major corporations consolidate control over the algorithms and infrastructure that shape the future.

- Geci Karuri-Sebina, Farai Mlambo, Beatrice Bonami, Kholiswa Malindini and Angella Ndaka

This is not a theoretical debate. AI is not a side issue; it is an economic governance challenge that will determine who captures value, who holds power, and whose interests technology ultimately serves for decades to come.

As the world debates ethical AI frameworks and the deployment of new models, Africa must insist that its central value, digital sovereignty, is included in the discussion. We must stop being the world’s digital quarry.

At the International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV 2025) in Abuja, Nigeria, scholars and policymakers held a workshop titled “Beyond AI Consumption: Digital Governance Politics and Management in the Global South,”sponsored by the Artificial Intelligence for Development (AI4D) programme in Africa. They debated the question: “Will the Global South simply consume - and be consumed - in this new Al order, or can it chart an alternative path toward agency and digital sovereignty?”

It became clear that there is an urgency for action when examining the three central pillars of the AI revolution:

Data Drain:

Africa is data-poor, not from a lack of information, but because most information generated on the continent is captured, processed, and stored elsewhere. This data fails to return in the form of value back to the continent, severely constraining local innovation and policy-making.

Low-Value Economics: