China’s Tencent announced a massive capital expansion into AI and digital infrastructure. The company is accelerating efforts to compete in an AI arms race alongside Alibaba and Baidu.
This isn’t just a corporate shift—it’s a national strategy. China has turned AI into an export, and Africa has become one of its key destinations.
While Chinese firms ramp up development, Africa remains largely dependent on imported algorithms, foreign cloud services, and AI tools that do not reflect our linguistic, cultural, or economic realities.
Where is the African equivalent of Tencent? Why aren’t we funding research hubs, incubating local AI startups, or creating regulatory frameworks that support indigenous tech?
AI is not just a tool—it is a language of power. If we don’t learn to speak it, we’ll be programmed by others.
