African nations should borrow, boost domestic revenue and tap their pension and sovereign wealth funds to develop the crucial infrastructure required to benefit from an AI boom, the Ethiopia-based United Nations Economic Commission for Africa said in a report on Thursday.
The continent’s more than 50 countries are at risk of missing out on AI-boosted economic modernisation due to lack of infrastructure, the report said.
Less than 1% of the world’s data centres are based in Africa, which poses “an economic and sovereignty challenge,” the report said.
“Strategic investments in data infrastructure and energy generation can reinforce each other by enabling digital industries while supporting electricity demand and reliability,” the UN commission said in the report released at a meeting of African ministers of finance in Morocco.
The UN report said that “public budgets alone will not suffice,” and that governments must strengthen domestic tax collection and tap financial markets, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and blended finance.
Governments should also prioritise skills training and fully implement the pan-African free trade area (AfCFTA) to complement a technology investment drive.
AI adoption, the report said, along with digital platforms and robotic production systems, could help the continent diversify its reliance on commodity exports and sell more finished, high-value products.
‘Today, competitiveness increasingly depends on a country’s capacity to generate, govern, and apply data and frontier technologies,” the UN commission said.
It said tapping technology could also help African countries use more of their own abundant critical mineral deposits to produce batteries, processors and other manufactured goods, rather than simply exporting them.
