Technology leaders at the 5th Africa Tech Alliance Forum (AfriTECH 5.0) have renewed urgent calls for Africa to seize control of its technological destiny by investing in sovereign digital systems, strengthening local infrastructure, and securing ownership of the data that powers modern economies.
Speaking on the theme “AI & Sovereign Tech: Building Africa’s Digital Independence,” ActivEdge Group President, George Agu, warned that Africa risks repeating colonial-style dependency if it continues exporting raw data only to import costly digital insights.
Agu argued that true sovereignty in today’s world is determined by who owns the servers, governs the data, and controls the algorithms.
Despite having over 700 innovation hubs and $5 billion in annual venture funding, he noted that more than 80% of Africa’s digital infrastructure is hosted overseas and fewer than 10% of AI models deployed locally use African datasets.
He stressed that this dependency fuels “algorithmic invisibility,” citing a case where a furniture maker in Aba was denied credit because foreign algorithms could not interpret informal African business patterns.
He highlighted promising sovereign-tech initiatives across the continent — from Rwanda and Kenya’s localised public-service digitisation, to South Africa’s indigenous language AI models, Ghana’s digital addressing system, and grassroots innovations in Ethiopia and Uganda.
Agu said Nigeria is well-positioned to lead the movement, backed by its youthful population and thriving fintech ecosystem, as well as policies like the National AI Strategy and the Nigeria Data Protection Act.
Research from McKinsey and AfDB, he added, shows Africa could unlock $1.3 trillion in GDP by localising AI.
At the same event, Muhammed Rudman, Managing Director of the Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), emphasised that Africa’s digital independence also relies on strengthening local internet traffic exchange.
He noted that much of Nigeria’s traffic still detours through Europe, causing latency, higher costs, and security exposure.
With IXPN recently surpassing 2 Tbps in peak local traffic, Rudman said effective peering can slash latency to 5–10 milliseconds while saving the country significant bandwidth costs and insulating local services during undersea cable outages.
Both speakers urged African governments, telecom operators, and innovators to commit to indigenous digital infrastructure, from national datasets and AI sandboxes to energy-secure data centres and widespread local peering.
They warned that the continent stands at a defining crossroads: continue consuming foreign technology or build sovereign systems that safeguard Africa’s economic and digital future.
Reporting by Chioma Ezike