Babacar Seck’s view
There’s a narrative out there that Africa is not well-placed to take part in today’s artificial-intelligence revolution. But this is wrong. It fundamentally misunderstands the continent’s unique position to become a major player in this transformative moment.
AI isn’t just another technological wave — it’s rapidly becoming the foundation of all future value creation. But this also presents an existential challenge, one which often keeps me up at night. Think about the consequences when Africa’s call-centers and outsourcers are replaced by AI agents managed from outside the continent, with no jobs, GDP, nor taxes generated locally. All industries will eventually face this challenge.
We can either become producers of AI technology, capturing the tremendous value it creates, or remain mere consumers, watching our productivity gap with developed economies widen even further — to the point of becoming insurmountable.
In Africa, AI is already present in our daily lives: In Senegal, where I’m from, many sellers in Dakar’s famous HLM street market now start their day with AI-powered TikTok connecting them to buyers that pay in mobile money.
Indeed, we are digitizing African economies during the AI era, creating fresh, structured data. With the world’s fastest growing digital-native, working-age population, Africa’s adoption curves are like no other. And we’ve done this before. In two decades, Africa went from 50 million bank accounts to over 600 million mobile money accounts. At my venture firm Askya, we see this moment as another paradigm-shifting opportunity to participate in building an AI-native digital economy. While fintechs like Nigeria’s Moniepoint use proprietary data on billions of transactions it processes to lend to small businesses, South Africa’s Lelapa AI’s APIs helps companies engage with clients in African languages at a scale like never before.
But innovators can also pioneer lower budget AI innovation to fit our economies. Africa’s relatively low labor costs make it possible to develop AI ecosystems that are more cost efficient. A senior Amazon Web Services sales manager in France can cost a company up to $300,000/year, when the same profile would cost several times less in most African countries. By building local models, digital services, and infrastructure, we can better serve our economies.
But again, this opportunity requires immediate action. While global firms from Google to Nvidia are building AI labs on the continent, sponsoring conferences, and investing in local research and startups, Africa’s major enterprises are yet to play a meaningful role.
What we need is a sense of urgency and prioritization at all levels. For African AI to scale, governments should categorize AI as a strategic industry, implement data protection laws, and scale up investments in energy, data centers, and science and technology education. Large businesses, such as telecommunications companies sitting on vast data troves, can partner with startups to unlock value. Connecting large enterprises with innovative startups can unleash a cycle where startups scale up by helping established enterprises digitize.
We must think bigger: We’re not just building businesses, we’re laying the foundation for Africa’s technological sovereignty and long-term prosperity. The question isn’t whether Africa will participate in the AI revolution — it’s whether we’ll do so as shapers and owners of our technological destiny, or merely as consumers of solutions built elsewhere.
Babacar Seck is the founder and managing partner of Askya Investment Partners, a firm building generational tech and AI companies from Africa.