As China and the United States compete to shape the future of artificial intelligence, Africa’s rapidly expanding digital landscape is emerging as a new arena for their rivalry, far from the technology hubs of Silicon Valley or Shenzhen.
With a growing population, expanding internet access and linguistic diversity, Africa is increasingly seen as a critical region for AI development, according to analysts. Early infrastructure and platform decisions can shape the future of emerging technology markets, making Africa key to the next phase of global AI adoption.
“The African continent is actually the place for the most economic growth in the future, just purely based on the demographics,” said Alice Chen, a former fellow at Georgetown University’s Tech & Society initiative.
While China remains deeply entrenched on the continent through the Belt and Road Initiative, recent investments from US technology companies and fresh government programmes show America is sharpening its focus.
An adoption gap is driving the interest in Africa. According to a Microsoft report, 24.7% of people in the Global North use AI, compared with 14.1% in the Global South – a group that includes Africa.
By 2050, one in four of the world’s population will be African, and for China and the US, the continent is one of the world’s largest digital frontiers where choices remain fluid.
“There is really a lot of appetite for new technology, and there are reports showing that Africans are extremely tech-savvy,” Chen said, adding that “there’s a huge spike in the growth of use of things like ChatGPT amongst young people there”.
China’s AI push builds on its long-established presence in Africa through the Belt and Road Initiative and the financing of fibre networks, data centres and telecommunications infrastructure.
AI language models created by China’s tech companies, such as DeepSeek, are also gaining ground on US counterparts like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, because they can be freely downloaded and aren’t reliant on US Internet-based systems.
Microsoft’s report suggests this has accelerated adoption in parts of Africa, prompting questions about whether open-source AI is being used to enhance Beijing’s soft power, functioning as a “geopolitical instrument”.
The US remains the global leader in AI, but the gap with China is narrowing.
“While the US maintains its lead in quantity, Chinese models have rapidly closed the quality gap,” wrote the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) in their AI Index Report 2025.
“China has done very, very well in Africa thanks to belt and road, and it also has practically a monopoly on the handset market in Africa,” said Danny Crichton, fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
“So I think from the US perspective, there’s a desire to move the continent back towards a US stack.”
Healthcare a key aspect of US AI strategy in Africa
Unlike China’s usual top-down state-led strategy, the US has historically had a more private-sector-driven approach to AI in the region, said Bulelani Jili, assistant professor at Georgetown University and faculty associate at Harvard University.
With US firms dominating the development of AI models worldwide, he added that “Washington is increasingly recognising that governance architecture matters as much as market share”.
In practice, expansion into Africa takes several forms. Major tech firms established research and development hubs in countries like Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria around 2020, Chen explained, adding that they are also “figuring out localised applications of their AI technologies”.
Healthcare is a key segment for American AI companies looking to make inroads in Africa. Many countries in the continent face severe worker shortages in this industry, amounting to millions of needed professionals, and significant portions of the population still lack reliable access to healthcare.
In February, US AI company Anthropic signed a three-year Memorandum of Understanding with the Rwandan government. The partnership aims to bring AI to Rwanda’s education, health and public-sector systems.
In January, the Gates Foundation and OpenAI launched a US$50mil (RM197.10mil) partnership to help African countries use AI to strengthen their healthcare systems.
Other US firms, including Microsoft, Google and IBM, are also expanding their presence on the continent. Jili said such partnerships suggest the US is placing more emphasis on Africa, but “the emphasis remains uneven”.
Beyond these collaborations, language accessibility is also a key factor for AI adoption in Africa. AI tools are primarily trained in English, Chinese or European languages, meaning many African languages have been under-represented.
Through language expansion, companies can access millions of underserved users, and US tech companies appear to be taking note.
In 2022, Google launched the 1,000 Languages Initiative, which aims to have an AI model that supports the top 1,000 languages across the globe. Google Translate supports over 240 languages as of March 2026. The tech giant said its initiative will be a multi-year undertaking.
Google also significantly expanded its support of African languages, collaborating with African universities and research institutions and launching WAXAL, a new open data set for African speech technology.
Meanwhile, Meta is running its No Language Left Behind (NLLB-200) project, which now supports over 50 African languages.
US focuses on tech diplomacy to challenge China
Washington is beginning to respond more visibly at a policy level to China’s AI rise, though targets remain more opaque.
In 2025, the administration of US President Donald Trump initiated a series of executive orders that aimed at maintaining US global dominance in advanced technologies and countering the global influence of Chinese tech, particularly in developing economies.
According to a Georgetown University article titled “The United States, China and AI Competition in Africa: Lessons for the Global South”, published in February, Trump’s AI strategy differs from that of his predecessor, Joe Biden, with the current president prioritising innovation over safety in addressing competition with China. Alice Chen was a co-author of this article.
US policy officials unveiled the Tech Corps in February, a new Peace Corps initiative aimed at promoting US technology overseas, with artificial intelligence as one of its central areas.
The move signals an effort not to just compete with China through private companies, but through government-backed tech diplomacy.
The same government that effectively dismantled the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which was formerly the largest aid agency in the world, appears to be putting tech diplomacy on par with traditional peace programmes.
The independent government agency will deploy Tech Corps volunteers to Peace Corps countries that are taking part in the Trump administration’s AI Exports Program.
The full list of countries in this programme has yet to be announced, although India is expected to be included. Crichton noted, “if you lose India and lose Africa, you’re down to less than half of the population of the earth”.
Chen argued that the Tech Corps is an important approach to countering China’s influence in the Global South. In the future, she predicted a more collaborative approach between the government and private companies.
“US domestic politics right now kind of has a convergence between the private and the public sectors,” she said, adding that US technology exports are now mirroring that convergence.
China’s structural advantage in African AI
China, however, already holds a structural advantage in Africa. Its influence builds on infrastructure projects and the Digital Silk Road. “AI tools are then layered onto these infrastructures, particularly in public security, transport and administrative systems,” said Jili.
According to Microsoft’s AI Diffusion Report 2025, released in January, DeepSeek usage in Africa is estimated to be two to four times higher than in other regions.
The generally free service eliminates cost barriers and has been strategically distributed in regions that were excluded in AI’s first wave of adoption.
“This dynamic also highlights how open-source AI can function as a geopolitical instrument, extending Chinese influence in areas where Western platforms cannot easily operate,” Microsoft wrote.
“Chinese technology companies, including DeepSeek and infrastructure partners like Huawei, actively promoted and deployed the platform in African markets through partnerships, outreach and integration with telecom services.”
Governance influence is not purely bilateral. Jili also noted that the European Union’s rules often influence business practices around the world.
Firms frequently adopt EU rules – such as the General Data Protection Regulation and the AI Act – in multiple countries for efficiency.
“African regulators are increasingly influenced by these standards, and both US and Chinese firms must navigate them,” he said. “European regulatory norms often shape the field.”
While many of the initiatives in Africa have been framed as progress, there are concerns about what this means for the region, from jobs and critical minerals to underlying motivations and AI sovereignty.
Essential for electronics and AI hardware, the continent holds 30% of the world’s critical mineral reserves, but it “captures only 10% of the global revenue generated from these resources”, according to the London-based research institute ODI Global.
The effect of AI on jobs is also being considered. A Brookings Institution report titled “Foresight Africa 2026” said AI could undercut the “continent’s greatest asset”, which is the young and cost-competitive labour force.
“With nearly 12 million Africans entering the job market each year but only about 3 million formal jobs being created, unemployment and underemployment remain structural,” the report said.
Jili explained a deeper issue at play is how African governments navigate dependence when it comes to AI.
“AI sovereignty in Africa is less about choosing between Washington and Beijing and more about managing interdependence in a world where compute, cloud infrastructure and capital are highly concentrated,” he said.
Seyram Avle, an associate professor of global digital media at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, added that Africa is only as important as yet another site to keep amassing resources and compete on techno power and influence.
“The AI phase is but a continuation of a story that should be familiar with anyone attentive to world history,” she added.
“The more important question, I think, should be what African governments are seeking by making such alliances without securing concomitant shifts in other areas that will lead to an outcome that will not endanger the present and future of ordinary Africans.” – South China Morning Post
