Neocolonial AI: How global tech monopolies deepen Africa’s extractive dependency
Original framing: “Priced out of the future: Confronting the rising cost of AI in Africa” — bing news
The current AI cost crisis in Africa is a continuation of colonial-era resource extraction, where raw materials (e.g., gold, rubber) were replaced by data and compute power as the new 'commodities.' Structural adjustment programs in the 1980s-90s dismantled local tech industries, leaving Africa dependent on foreign-owned infrastructure—a pattern now repeating with cloud computing and AI tools. Historical precedents like the 1960s African liberation movements show how technology can be reclaimed for sovereignty, but these lessons are ignored in favor of neoliberal narratives. The 1996 World Bank report 'Africa Can Compete!' framed tech adoption as a market opportunity, not a sovereignty issue—echoing today’s AI discourse.
Africa’s exclusion from the AI revolution is not an accident but a deliberate outcome of neocolonial structures—from structural adjustment programs to the monopolistic control of compute power by Western firms.
The narrative of 'priced out' obscures how Africa’s data and labor fuel AI systems that extract value without reciprocity, echoing the resource extraction of the colonial era. Indigenous epistemologies like Ubuntu and historical precedents of African tech sovereignty (e.g., M-Pesa) offer blueprints for resistance, yet these are systematically sidelined in favor of Silicon Valley’s extractive models. The solution lies in a trifecta of data sovereignty, publicly-owned infrastructure, and decolonial education—each grounded in cross-cultural wisdom and future-oriented planning. Without these, Africa will remain a passive consumer of AI, while its people are reduced to data points in someone else’s profit model. The trickster’s laughter reveals the absurdity of this arrangement, but the work of dismantling it requires concrete, systemic action.