AI made in Africa – or made for Africa?

At the The 77 Percent panel organized by Deutsche Welle (DW) in the atrium at re:publica asks the question: Is AI Africa’s opportunity to leapfrog stages of development, or are leading LLMs reproducing global power asymmetries?

Artificial intelligence is regarded worldwide as a key technology. While Silicon Valley and China compete for technological dominance, Africa is often seen as a data supplier, test market, or source of raw materials. At the same time, confident Gen Z tech communities are emerging in cities such as Nairobi, Lagos, and Kigali, developing AI products for local realities, from agricultural innovations to language models in Swahili.

The central questions are: Who is programming the future, and whose perspective shapes the code? Are African societies co creators, or merely training material for global AI systems? And how can digital sovereignty be achieved when much of the data leaves the continent before it is processed?