AI in Africa – Where to From Here?

Challenges in AI Adoption

A full one third of the world still have no internet connectivity: This is a clear hurdle that exists across the globe when talking about digital adoption and specifically AI adoption. This is highlighted further, when looked at through the lens of an African perspective. At the end of 2024, only around 38% of Africa had digital connectivity compared to a global average of 68% providing a worrying context to the challenge.

Infrastructure remains a key challenge in growing connectivity in Africa, often killing off international programs aimed at providing connectivity, especially in rural areas. Energy Supply is likewise a looming issue for developing not only connectivity but particularly AI with it’s energy hungry data and super computer centres.

The question posed at today’s session at AI Expo Africa is: Can the African Tech sector create a eco-system that transcend the challenges to lift its visibility onto the spectrum of investable tech start-ups?

The AI Ecosystem in Africa

According to Dr Nick Bradshaw, in Africa today, there are around 6,000 AI companies. To provide context to that, there are more AI companies in the state of California than there are in the whole of Africa.

Africa does not hold that type of investment offering and a major question now is how does the AI-tech industry change that? How does it exponentially drive growth? As pointed out today, they are out there but   most are working and operating in a constrained environment.

The solution is to inspiring young people to get involved in AI and look at what they’re doing in the real world.

Hype or Hyper-Scale?

There has been much talk around the AI hype at the AI expo Africa 2025, with many contending that the hype is driving the AI adoption trend globally. But what happened in the last 18 months? There has been a shift from AI-Able business start-ups to AI-enabled businesses. 

The new term thrown around the AI world, is AI-enabled. And according to AI expert, Kieth Jones, this has started to emerge in the last 5 or 6 months. In terms of numbers behind AI-enabled businesses, 47% of AI-enabled businesses reach scaling stage, versus 30% of AI-abled businesses.

This equates to a 300% higher chance of reaching scale if you’re AI-enabled versus AI-abled. The State of AI report says AI-native startups scale 4.5 times faster than AI-enabled businesses. 4.5 times faster, a big differentiator.

So when you see 51% of Venture Capital investment moving into AI, it is more than just a hype cycle but a major shift in technology, driving investments. This is not to say that there is not a risk of a bubble effect.  

The AI hype market, according to Jones, was 6 months ago, and he points out that today “we’re now in a very high scaling, hyper scaling market”. “So it’s all the guys doing AI stuff, it’s here, the market’s arrived, it’s not a hype market. “All the numbers are coming through like a freight train” contends Jones.

The advice from Kieth Jones for AI companies in this market: “Build faster, and then you’ve got optimal value using AI”. “What that means is you’ve got to use the AI stack to build the product. You have to be releasing one or two features a week” says Jones.