Africa has 18 months to build AI that serves it.
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Date
2026-05-28
Authors
Tumusiime, Abby James
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
New Vision
Abstract
There is a conversation happening in the corridors of power in San Francisco, Beijing, Washington, and Brussels. It is a conversation about which continents will own the next century and which will rent it. Africa is not in that conversation. I do not write this from despair, I write it from unusual access. I was born in Kampala, raised in Stockholm and have spent the last decade building Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. I know that the window for Africa to enter the global AI economy on its own terms is roughly 18 months wide. After that, the architecture of the next century calcifies and we spend the rest of our lives as tenants in systems built by others, for others, priced for others.
Description
Newspaper Article
Keywords
Citation
Tumusiime, A. J. (2026). Africa has 18 months to build AI that serves it. New Vision.