Africa possesses something much of the world envies: the youngest and fastest-growing workforce on the planet. I believe this is the defining opportunity of our generation.
But opportunity is only as strong as the ecosystem built around it. Give this workforce the skills, tools, incentives to innovate and pathways to jobs, and we unleash a force that can power Africa’s rise for decades. Fail to do so, and that same energy will find expression in disruption.
A recent conversation reminded me that it is already taking shape on this continent. I had been looking forward to speaking with Kate Kallot, founder of Amini AI. After leadership roles at NVIDIA, Arm and Intel, she made a deliberate decision to build her company in Nairobi rather than Silicon Valley.
Kate is doing something more difficult than many appreciate. She is building the infrastructure beneath the infrastructure: African-owned data systems, climate and environmental intelligence, computing capacity that belongs to us, and policy frameworks that will enable African countries to shape AI rather than merely inherit it.
I wanted to understand what this moment means for African jobs, skills and our place in the future of AI.
What stayed with me was her insistence that a young African, educated in one of the world’s best systems, should be able to ask a machine about her own history, language or land and receive an accurate answer.
That raises an uncomfortable question: what does it mean when the technology shaping how the next generation learns has little memory of Africa? If our knowledge, languages and ways of understanding the world are absent from the data, they do not exist to the machine.
Increasingly, machines are how the world remembers.
The challenge, therefore, is not simply access. The data that tells the story of who we are — our culture, history and knowledge systems — must be digitised, embedded and owned on the continent.
AI is becoming deeply embedded in everyday life, especially for digitally savvy young people. Powerful AI models are now available on smartphones, and phrases such as “Ask ChatGPT” have become commonplace.
Workplaces increasingly rely on tools such as Claude, Gemini and Grok to complete routine tasks. New AI systems emerge almost daily.
Yet their limitations from an African perspective are often invisible because they are designed to answer every question, even when their understanding of Africa is incomplete.
Africa cannot afford to remain on the margins. How often do chatbots produce inaccurate answers about African history or knowledge systems? Far too often. How frequently do we encounter AI-generated misinformation or fabricated images? More often than we should.
Africa’s greatest resource
Technologies trained on biased data inevitably reproduce those biases. What message does that send to young Africans if the technology they rely on consistently misrepresents them?
That is why Africa must invest in AI infrastructure designed for its own realities. We need not replicate the resource-intensive data centres seen elsewhere.
Instead, we should build facilities suited to our needs, protect ownership of our data and treat AI infrastructure as a public good that gives start-ups, researchers and innovators the computing capacity they require.
Whatever AI skills young people acquire, they must be matched with responsibility. AI tools that help detect disease, for example, should never become a basis for denying people healthcare cover.
That would undermine the very purpose of technology, which is to improve lives.
We therefore need laws that govern AI responsibly while encouraging innovation. Regulation should protect people and strengthen public trust without stifling technological progress. Otherwise, we risk regulating ourselves into the past.
It has always been its people. The choices we make today in education, digital infrastructure, governance and innovation will determine whether Africa’s young people merely use artificial intelligence or build it.
The future is already being shaped by pioneers such as Kate Kallot, Tonee Ndungu, Shikoh Gitau, Alfred Ongere and Nanjira Sambuli.
Their work reminds us that Africa does not have to wait for the future of AI to arrive. We can help create it.
Ms Mathai is the MD for Africa & Global Partnerships at the World Resources Institute and Chair of Wangari Maathai Foundation
