This paper examines how African nations can develop sovereign artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities instead of remaining passive consumers of foreign technologies. With Africa accounting for only 1% of global computing capacity, the continent faces a significant amount of challenges, but also has many opportunities to build AI systems specifically designed for African contexts. Drawing lessons from India’s successful Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) approach, the paper proposes a comprehensive framework for African AI sovereignty that expands beyond simple technology transfer and addresses infrastructure, human capacity, governance, and regional collaboration gaps.
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