Tech Consultant at AstraVella Tech, Augustine Awini has urged African governments, investors and technology leaders to shift the continent’s artificial intelligence conversation from simple adoption to long-term infrastructure ownership, warning that Africa risks remaining only a consumer in the global AI economy.
Speaking during a panel discussion at the 3i Africa Summit ’26 in Accra, Mr Awini argued that Africa’s challenge is not necessarily a lack of capital, but rather the absence of enough companies building foundational AI infrastructure capable of attracting major global investment.
According to him, while significant funding exists globally for AI development, most of it flows toward firms building the underlying infrastructure powering the technology ecosystem.
“The issue is structural,” he said. “There is capital available, but it is not flowing into the kinds of companies that build next-generation AI infrastructure.”
Awini explained that Africa currently participates in artificial intelligence largely at the application layer, using and adopting AI-driven products without owning the core systems behind them, including compute capacity, cloud infrastructure, data centres, connectivity networks and foundational AI models.
He compared the situation to an events company operating inside venues and systems owned entirely by external providers.
“You may build applications on top, you may drive adoption, and you may create businesses around AI. But if the compute infrastructure, cloud platforms, foundational models, connectivity layers and capital structures are controlled elsewhere, then our participation remains limited,” he stated.
The tech consultant noted that global investors are increasingly focusing on AI infrastructure as the next strategic frontier. He referenced recent international investment trends where major private equity firms are committing billions of dollars into AI infrastructure companies.
According to Awini, the global race for AI dominance mirrors earlier eras where ownership of railways, ports and energy systems determined long-term economic power.
“The same way railway infrastructure shaped industrial power over the last century, AI infrastructure is becoming the defining strategic infrastructure of this era,” he said.
He stressed that Africa’s AI ambitions would remain constrained unless the continent invests collectively in shared infrastructure systems capable of supporting future innovation and economic competitiveness.
Awini proposed the creation of regional AI infrastructure hubs across Africa, including high-capacity data centres interconnected through continental networks and supported by national nodes.
Rather than individual countries attempting to independently finance massive AI ecosystems, he suggested a collaborative regional model where African states collectively invest in shared AI infrastructure.
“You can have one tier of high-cost regional AI infrastructure centres and then national nodes that connect all those systems together,” he explained. “Then we can begin building models trained on unified African data.”
He also raised concerns about digital sovereignty and data control, warning that many African AI systems currently depend on foreign-owned cloud platforms and external computational systems.
According to him, African data is often processed through infrastructure located abroad before results are returned to users on the continent, limiting transparency and control over how AI systems are trained and deployed.
“We have no control over what goes into the inference and what comes back to us,” Awini cautioned.
He described investment in AI infrastructure as “a no-brainer”, arguing that the long-term economic benefits would far outweigh the initial costs.
Awini concluded by urging policymakers, investors and technology stakeholders to broaden the AI debate beyond politics and adoption metrics toward deeper conversations about infrastructure ownership, financing models and continental collaboration.
He maintained that the countries and regions that own the infrastructure powering artificial intelligence will ultimately control the greatest share of value in the emerging digital economy.
