Kenya is looking to deepen its cooperation with the United States on artificial intelligence and digital transformation, with recent talks in Nairobi centered on technology investment, data governance and the responsible development of AI.
The Department for ICT and the Digital Economy hosted a US delegation drawn from the American Embassy and the American Chamber of Commerce to examine avenues for expanded bilateral cooperation. The talks covered increasing US technology investment in Kenya, strengthening trusted data governance to support economic development and digital trade, and aligning Kenya’s policy and regulatory frameworks with internationally recognized standards — a move Kenya’s side argued would improve interoperability, safeguard cross-border data flows and lift investor confidence.
Leading the Kenyan side was John Tanui, principal secretary for ICT and the Digital Economy, joined by Kenya’s Data Protection Commissioner Immaculate Kassait.
Tanui said the discussions were focused on strengthening Kenya’s digital investment climate, building on prior engagements from President William Ruto’s Silicon Valley trip, and advancing policy initiatives including the national data governance policy and the AI and emerging technologies policy.
“As Kenya accelerates its initiatives in digital transformation and AI, robust data governance is increasingly identified as a strategic nationwide asset,” Tanui said. Strong data protection frameworks, he added, were not obstacles to innovation but the foundation for safe digital services, responsible AI, cross-border data interoperability, investor confidence and sustainable growth.
Aligning national frameworks with international best practices, Tanui said, would help elevate Kenya’s status as a trusted digital economy.
The meeting is the latest in a run of high-level engagements between Nairobi and major US and global technology players. In June, Kenya expanded its Microsoft partnership to scale AI and digital skills training across all 47 counties, and separately opened talks with OpenAI to bring the company’s first East African academy to Nairobi. The country’s Cabinet also formalized a Standing Committee on Artificial Intelligence last month to coordinate national AI policy — a step that placed high-level AI decision-making at the centre of government.
The bilateral engagement lands against a more complicated backdrop. A Rest of World investigation earlier this year, drawing on the draft AI policies of Africa’s four biggest tech economies, found Kenya among the countries that had explicitly identified dependence on US technology companies as a strategic risk. That has driven Nairobi’s parallel push for stronger data sovereignty, better public procurement terms and clearer accountability from foreign AI providers — priorities that sit alongside its ongoing courtship of US technology investment rather than in place of it.
