Africa has marked a significant milestone in its journey to shape a responsible and locally relevant future for Artificial Intelligence (AI) with the official launch of the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) AI Institute (ACAII). This visionary initiative is dedicated to advancing ethical, African-centered AI innovation, governance, and research across the continent.
AI holds immense transformative potential for Africa, promising to boost economies, enhance governance systems, and improve public services. Despite a current low deployment rate, access is rapidly expanding, with McKinsey estimating that current AI adoption could unlock an additional $61 billion to $103 billion in economic value across various sectors.
Kathryn Toure, IDRC Director for the Regional Office of Sub-Saharan Africa, highlighted the critical support from the AI for Development (AI4D) program, backed by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).
She lauded the AI4D Scholarship Program for bridging the AI divide by empowering researchers and innovators from historically disadvantaged communities to develop and scale AI solutions tailored to African needs.
Rooted in the vision of an African-centered AI future, ACAII is committed to fostering ethical, inclusive, and contextually relevant AI solutions that empower communities, drive economic growth, and advance sustainable development.
In his keynote address, Dr. Laurent Bochereau, Minister-Counsellor for the European Union Delegation to the African Union, emphasized the 25-year partnership between the AU and EU in science, technology, and innovation.
He highlighted Horizon Europe, the EU’s €100 billion research and innovation program, which includes a dedicated Africa Initiative. The latest iteration, Africa Initiative III (for the 2025 budget year), has earmarked €500 million for 26 topics, including a specific call for Generative AI for Africa. This call seeks to develop human-centric generative AI solutions, focusing on rural communities and women across agriculture, healthcare, infrastructure, and digital skills, aiming to involve local startups and end-users from the outset.
At its core, the ACTS AI Institute’s mission is to ensure AI serves the people of Africa, aligning with the continent’s unique values, priorities, and aspirations. The Institute focuses on five strategic pillars: Responsible AI Solutions, AI Policy and Governance, AI and Jobs, AI Capacity Building, and Data Science. Through these pillars, ACAII aims to create tangible, human-centered impacts in critical sectors such as agriculture, healthcare, education, and climate resilience.
The Executive Director of ACTS noted that the Institute builds on five years of experience in developing and deploying responsible AI solutions and policies, with this launch enabling them to “do what we have been doing better, with a wider mandate across the continent.”
Dr. Winston Ojenge, Principal Research Fellow and Head of the ACTS AI Institute, added, “We are involved in research and development of Africanized policy, standards, and ethics of AI. Specifically, we are already developing an Africanized scaling of responsible AI toolbox.”
The Institute plans to leverage AI to enhance agricultural productivity through predictive models for weather patterns and crop yields, empowering smallholder farmers. AI-driven diagnostics and telemedicine platforms are also being tailored to address Africa’s healthcare challenges, particularly in underserved rural areas.
Amb. Prof. Bitange Ndemo underscored the need to prioritize bridging the existing gap in AI development. “We need to begin to think from the policy side. How do we build the necessary infrastructure? We need local infrastructure. We need appropriate capacity building, which must be centered on people understanding what they need to do in order to transition from poverty to prosperity.”
Dr. Devotha Nyambo, Senior Lecturer and Researcher at Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology, highlighted challenges in data infrastructure and disaggregation. “The Institute has the opportunity to make sure that we are closing that gap and make sure we have disaggregated data more real time, but also localize the data that can represent our local context.”
Focusing on AI and jobs, the Institute will explore how AI can drive economic transformation and create inclusive opportunities, analyzing labor market shifts and fostering AI-driven entrepreneurship, particularly for Africa’s youth.
The Institute will also equip African policymakers, researchers, and entrepreneurs with the skills to lead in AI development and governance through targeted training programs, ensuring Africa’s human capital is prepared to shape the global AI landscape.
Gillian Dowie, Senior Program Specialist at IDRC, articulated the collective goal: “to build an ecosystem in which responsible AI policies are adopted and implemented, and in which AI innovations are scaling their impact inclusively spreading the benefits of the tools to people that are most often left out of economic and particularly technological transformations.”
The Institute’s endeavors align with key African Union strategies, including Agenda 2063, the Digital Transformation Strategy 2020-2030, and the Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa 2024, all envisioning a prosperous and integrated Africa driven by science, technology, and innovation.
Prof. Brando Okolo, Head of Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) at AUDA-NEPAD, noted the upsurge in digital activity across the continent, with young people leveraging data centers for AI solutions. “I am happy that there is an opportunity for us to also look deeply at how African languages can begin to feature within this Institute,” he added.
The ACTS AI Institute is actively seeking to establish and sustain partnerships with governments, academia, civil society, the private sector, and the media to build a collaborative ecosystem that steers responsible AI development. As Prof. Divine Fuh, Director of HUMA – Institute for Humanities in Africa, aptly put it, “This institute, therefore, is an an AI laboratory to ask these very important questions.”
