{"id":282067,"date":"2026-06-25T20:54:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T00:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/25\/who-will-control-africas-ai-infrastructure-and-at-what-cost-technology-news\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T00:55:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T04:55:55","slug":"who-will-control-africas-ai-infrastructure-and-at-what-cost-technology-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/25\/who-will-control-africas-ai-infrastructure-and-at-what-cost-technology-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Who will control Africa\u2019s AI infrastructure, and at what cost? | Technology News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who will control Africa\u2019s AI infrastructure, and at what cost? | Technology News<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/6\/26\/who-will-control-africas-ai-infrastructure-and-at-what-cost<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-06-25 20:54:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.aljazeera.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Johannesburg, South Africa \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0In April, African Union ministers gathered in Tangier, Morocco, to discuss artificial intelligence at a moment when governments across the continent are racing to develop AI strategies, attract investment and expand digital infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Beneath the enthusiasm, however, sits a more fundamental question. As foreign technology companies invest in data centres, cloud services and AI systems across Africa, how much control will African countries ultimately have over the infrastructure on which those technologies depend?<\/p>\n

The debate reflects a broader shift in how policymakers are thinking about AI. For years, discussions focused largely on adoption: how governments, businesses and public services could use the technology. Increasingly, attention is turning to ownership, governance and the terms on which AI systems are developed and deployed.<\/p>\n

Several governments have framed the issue in those terms. Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt and Ghana have all released national AI strategies in recent years that highlight the need to build local capacity and reduce dependence on foreign technology providers. Ghana\u2019s national strategy, launched in April, describes AI as a \u201csovereign capability\u201d. Forty-nine countries, along with the African Union, have endorsed the Africa Declaration on Artificial Intelligence, which calls for greater investment in African AI infrastructure, talent and innovation, alongside proposals for coordinated financing mechanisms.<\/p>\n

At the same time, translating ambition into policy has not always been straightforward. In South Africa, a draft national AI policy was withdrawn earlier this year after officials identified references that could not be verified and appeared to have been generated by AI tools, highlighting the practical challenges governments face in regulating rapidly evolving technologies.<\/p>\n

Global competition, local leverage<\/h2>\n

The discussion is unfolding as global competition over AI intensifies. Major technology companies,…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who will control Africa\u2019s AI infrastructure, and at what cost? | Technology News https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/6\/26\/who-will-control-africas-ai-infrastructure-and-at-what-cost Publish…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":282069,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/reuters_686e3904-1752054020.jpg?resize=1920%2C1440","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282067"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":282070,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282067\/revisions\/282070"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}