Abolaji Adebayo In a significant move to secure a competitive position in the global digital economy, the Federal Government of Nigeria has formally entered the continental artificial intelligence arena with the publication of its National AI Strategy this year.
The strategic blueprint, which focuses on critical pillars of infrastructure, skills development, governance, and ecosystem development, arrives as several key African nations are rapidly advancing their own regulatory and investment frameworks for the transformative technology.
The African continent is witnessing a surge in AI policy formulation, marking a collective shift towards harnessing the fourth industrial revolution. This strategic positioning places Nigeria in direct cohort with regional peers who have already laid out ambitious roadmaps.
To the north, Egypt launched its National AI Strategy for 2025- 2030 in 2021, setting a formidable target of growing its Information and Communication Technology sector’s contribution to 7.7 per cent of GDP and cultivating a specialised workforce of 30,000 AI professionals by the end of the decade.
In East Africa, both Kenya and Rwanda are making decisive strides. Rwanda approved its National AI Policy in 2023 and established a dedicated Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution to accelerate implementation and attract international partnerships.
Neighbouring Kenya unveiled its own National AI Strategy this year, with a clear ambition to position itself as a regional AI hubthrough targeted investments in data governance, research, and the commercialisation of homegrown AI solutions.
The West African region is also active, with Benin having launched its National AI and Big Data Strategy in 2023, prioritising data infrastructure, skills, and governance frameworks. These developments trace back to the early leadership of Mauritius, which published one of the continent’s first National AI Strategies as far back as 2018, focusing on skills development and government-led use cases.
Further south, South Africa also entered the field in 2025 with an AI policy framework that places a strong emphasis on ethics, inclusion, and transparency. A critical enabler for these national AI ambitions is the parallel progress in data governance across the continent.
According to recent data from the United Nations Trade and Development body (UNCTAD), an impressive 76 per cent of African nations have now enacted dataprotection laws. This widespread legal foundation is crucial for building citizen trust, ensuring privacy, and facilitating the responsible deployment of AI systems.
The existence of these laws provides a necessary layer of security for both users and investors looking to participate in Nigeria’s and Africa’s emerging digital markets. In tandem with legislative progress, African regulators are increasingly adopting innovative approaches to manage technological disruption.
The use of regulatory sandboxes, which allow for the testing of AI-driven solutions in controlled, real-world environments, is gaining traction. This method is particularly valuable in sensitive sectors such as healthcare and financial services, where innovation must be balanced with rigorous consumer protection.
Kenya’s National AI Strategy, for instance, explicitly advocates for such sandboxes to facilitate safe experimentation and to provide practical insights that can shape future AI-specific legislation.
For Nigeria, the launch of its strategy is a foundational step. The focus on infrastructure acknowledges the critical need for robust computational power and data centres, while the emphasis on skills seeks to address the potential brain drain and build a domestic talent pool capable of driving local innovation.
The success of this strategy is seen as pivotal for the nation’s economic diversification, job creation for its burgeoning youth population, and enhancing the efficiency of public services.
As the continent continues to build this new digital architecture, the collaboration and competition between Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, Rwanda, and others will likely define Africa’s role and influence in the global AI landscape for decades to come.
