African nations should borrow, increase domestic revenue collection and tap pension and sovereign wealth funds to develop the infrastructure needed to benefit from the global AI boom, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa said in a report released Thursday.
The report, released at a meeting of African finance ministers in Morocco, warned that the continent’s more than 50 countries risk missing out on AI-driven economic modernization due to a lack of digital infrastructure. Less than 1% of the world’s data centers are based in Africa, a situation the commission described as “an economic and sovereignty challenge.”
“Public budgets alone will not suffice,” the report said, urging governments to strengthen domestic tax collection and tap financial markets, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and blended finance mechanisms to close the investment gap.
The commission said strategic investments in data infrastructure and energy generation could reinforce each other, enabling digital industries while supporting electricity demand and grid reliability. Governments should also prioritize skills training and fully implement the pan-African free trade area to complement technology investment drives.
The report argued that AI adoption, alongside digital platforms and robotic production systems, could help Africa diversify away from reliance on commodity exports toward higher-value manufactured goods. It also said that harnessing technology could help African countries use more of their abundant critical mineral deposits to produce batteries, processors and other manufactured products domestically rather than simply exporting raw materials.
“Today, competitiveness increasingly depends on a country’s capacity to generate, govern, and apply data and frontier technologies,” the commission said.
