Emma Okonji
A new Boston Consulting Group (BCG) report has highlighted a critical challenge for Africa’s digital future, warning that Africa must bridge its existing Artificial Intelligence (AI) infrastructure gap by building digital infrastructure or risk deepening its dependence on foreign digital infrastructure.
The report said continued dependence on foreign digital infrastructure would be detrimental to the continent’s growth.
The report, themed: ‘Advancing Africa’s AI and Digital Economy’, insisted that Africa must urgently focus on three priorities to become a creator rather than a consumer in the AI economy.
The report listed the three priority areas to include: Building digital infrastructure; Scaling shared investment models, and accelerating open-source innovation.
According to the report, despite accounting for 18 per cent of the global population, the African continent holds less than one per cent of global data centre capacity and its digital economy contributes just five per cent of GDP, compared to the 15 per cent global average.
The report warned that the Africa risks falling into a familiar historical trap of continually exporting raw data to feed proprietary models built abroad, only to buy the technology back under expensive licenses.
The report therefore highlighted a stark economic imbalance, waring that while AI development is set to inject $15.7 trillion into global GDP by 2030, Africa’s digital economy is expanding too slowly to keep pace.
Analysing the report, BCG Managing Director and Head of BCG Tech Hub in Africa, Hamid Maher, who is a co-author of the report, said: “Africa’s core challenge is no longer about technology adoption; it is about tech production. We have the world’s youngest population and the fastest-growing cloud market, but we lack the foundational infrastructure to own our digital future. Winning requires capturing value from the technology stack itself – building, governing, and retaining our data and talent locally.”
BCG Senior Partner, and co-author of the report, Patrick Dupoux, said: “As agentic AI and advanced robotics begin to disrupt traditional developing pathways like call centres and manufacturing, establishing strong domestic tech ecosystems is becoming an economic imperative for Africa. At the same time, as digital systems become more open and interconnected, trust becomes increasingly important, creating the confidence needed to accelerate innovation, attract investment and unlock broad participation. Africa has both the ambition and the talent to shape its own digital future. By strengthening its digital foundations and retaining more value locally, the continent can transition from a digital consumer to a digital value creator in the global AI economy.”
Giving the cost implication of falling behind, the report said with the United States of America’s digital platforms commanding market capitalisations between $1 trillion and $5 trillion, dwarfing global competitors, Africa would face an accelerating risk of an ever-widening tech deficit.
Without immediate local value capture, the continent risks a structural dependency where its clinical, behavioural, and environmental data are treated as raw materials exported to feed proprietary models built abroad, only to return home under license, the report said.
To reverse the outflux of economic benefits, the report outlined three key structural constraints that are contributing to underdeveloped digital infrastructure and weak foundations for AI enablement across Africa to include: Fragmentation; Brain-drain, and Reliance on imported systems.
In the area of Fragmentation, the report said Africa’s 54 economies remained too small, as not one exceeds $500 billion in GDP, to justify the infrastructure investment that a modern digital economy needs. Within countries, individual organisations have limited investment capacity.
For the Brain-drain, the report said Africa’s 62,000 AI specialists represented just five per cent of the global AI workforce, and that 38 per cent of those professionals work remotely for foreign companies rather than building local ecosystems.
In the area of Reliance on imported systems, the report said costly licensing, coupled with vendor lock-in, would continue to limit flexibility, slow innovation and direct value outside the continent. It further explained that closed systemswould also constrain local participation and talent retention, with African companies paying up to 35 per cent more than global peers for the same technology.
To reverse the trajectory, BCG identified priority areas for public and private sector leaders to strengthen the digital foundations needed to unleash Africa’s digital and AI economy.
BCG advised on building infrastructure and data foundations through public-private partnerships (PPPs), adding that successful models show that governments should retain ownership and strategic oversight while leaving execution to the private sector.