Across Africa, when a startup needs computing power to train an AI model, its data often travels thousands of miles to servers on other continents. When an entrepreneur pays for cloud services, local currency is rarely accepted. And healthcare AI is often trained on data that has never seen a patient on the continent. Today, only five percent of Africa’s AI talent has access to the compute power required for complex tasks.
Yet Africa’s AI story is not one of limitations but of momentum. The continent holds critical minerals that power global AI infrastructure and is home to the world’s youngest population – a generation whose optimism towards AI contrasts hesitation felt elsewhere. A 2025 Global Survey on AI and Human Development found 70 percent of respondents in low and medium HDI countries, mostly in Africa, expect AI to boost productivity, with two-thirds anticipating using it in education, health, or work within a year.
The AI Hub for Sustainable Development builds on this momentum, connecting African builders with the resources, partnerships, and markets needed for inclusive growth. Co-designed with the G7 and African Union under Italy’s presidency, it ensures AI’s future is built by, with, and for all.
With the aim of shaping a prosperous future with AI, two flagship programmes lead the way. The Infrastructure Builder programme provides the foundations – compute, storage, renewable power, local payment systems, AI hardware, and model training capacity. The Compute Accelerator gives ventures direct access to computing power, mentorship, and investment facilitation, closing the gap for innovators who could not otherwise afford it. Global partners contribute: CINECA commits 1.5 GPU hours; AWS provides $1M in cloud credits; Microsoft offers up to $150,000 in Azure credits per innovator. Together, these programmes connect the private sector across 18 Italy-Africa Mattei Plan countries, Italy, the EU and G7 to the compute, partnerships, and markets to ensure AI works for everyone, everywhere.
This is what sovereignty looks like: a startup paying for compute in local currency, a researcher training a model locally – a shift from transfer to co-creation, reflecting participation on equal terms.
The AI Hub for Sustainable Development is a G7-endorsed initiative co-led by Italy’s Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy and UNDP in line with the Italy-Africa Mattei Plan.
This article was originally published in Italian in the magazine Africa e Affari.
Source: www.undp.org
