Africa's role in the digital economy: Market, mine, or digital maker?

Globally, data has become a new commodity. The challenge is no longer whether nations are connected, but who owns, governs and extracts value from this commodity.

- PHILASANDE SOKHELA

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD, Digital Economy Report 2021/2024 updates), over 70% of global data traffic is controlled by a small number of firms headquartered in the United States and China, underscoring the concentration of digital power. In this context, Africa's digital trajectory raises a difficult but important question.

Is Africa just a market and a mine or finally a digital maker?

In the European Union (EU), data sovereignty has become an explicit policy.

Frameworks such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) have allowed the EU to control data flows, platform accountability and citizen privacy.

The GDPR has had extraterritorial impact, applying to any firm processing EU citizens’ data globally.

More recently, GAIA-X has sought to reduce over-dependence on United States (US) hyperscalers.

Hyperscalers are cloud providers such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon. Over 65% of Europe's cloud market remains controlled by US hyperscalers.

The US operates through corporate sovereignty. Its firms dominate global digital infrastructure: Amazon Web Services alone accounts for roughly 30-32% of global cloud market share, followed by Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud (Statista, 2025).

Meanwhile, China has pursued an assertive state-led digital sovereignty model.

Companies such as Alibaba and Huawei export not just infrastructure, but embedded governance standards, particularly across Africa and Asia through the Digital Silk Road (World Bank, 2023; OECD, 2024).

While all of this is happening in developed economies, Africa on the other hand reportedly has less than 1-2% of global data centre capacity, despite accounting for nearly 18% of the world's population (Africa Data Centres Association, 2024; UNCTAD, 2024).