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We do not always associate Africa with technology. Yet we have seen in the telecoms sector how the continent can leapfrog others and lead.
According to the GSMA, a global trade association for mobile network operators, sub-Saharan Africa has more than 1.1 billion mobile money accounts. It is the global leader in the adoption of mobile money and, with such transactions in the region valued at $1.1 trillion in 2024, it accounts for nearly 65 percent of worldwide transaction value.
Mobile penetration and mobile money have been transformative in Africa, catalyzing businesses, contributing to government revenues and delivering jobs. Can the continent repeat this success with artificial intelligence?
We know AI is bringing sweeping changes to our world. Rapid adoption of this technology is transforming the ways in which we live and do business. As with any new technology, it brings with it threats and opportunities.
Call centers, for example, have been the backbone of economic development in some emerging economies and industrialization has driven growth globally. But AI is fundamentally changing the nature of customer service, making human interaction redundant, while robotics and AI are creating silent factories, offering the prospect of jobless industrial growth.
Underlying all this is Africa’s unique demographic profile. Seventy percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s population is under the age of 30, our population is expected to double approximately every 29 years and, by 2050, one in four people on this planet will be African. That is 25 percent of humanity; in 1900, we were less than 10 percent.
I have firsthand experience of this complex and compelling African cocktail of technology and population growth. As an investor and one of the leading supporters of young entrepreneurs across the continent, I see the passion of its next generation. We have transformed the United Bank for Africa, one of the continent’s largest financial institutions, into a digital powerhouse. We are embedding AI into all that we do.
The challenge is not only how to incorporate AI into business operations but how to navigate the journey of disruption and reap the full benefits.
For Africa, the stakes are even higher. We must act with urgency to prepare this African generation for the AI-driven economy or risk condemning them to deepening inequality.
McKinsey Global Institute projects that AI will contribute $13 trillion to the global economy by 2030, representing 16 percent of growth in gross domestic product. Beneath the optimism, however, there lies a warning: AI could widen the inequality gap. This poses a particularly significant risk for Africa. We are confronting the possibility of economic marginalization. For Africa to benefit from AI, the continent needs urgent and massive investment in infrastructure if it is to compete and be included.
I was honored to attend the ninth edition of the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh last month, at the invitation of Richard Attias, chairperson of the FII Institute, and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of the Public Investment Fund of ��������. I joined a distinguished gathering of change-makers — with more than 8,000 delegates, including 20 heads of state, in attendance — to discuss “The Key to Prosperity.”
The conversations around the transformative potential of AI were exciting. Yet one question dominated my thoughts: Can this technology finally bridge the inequality gap dividing Africa from the rest of the world?
Some 600 million Africans live without access to electricity. Countries such as Nigeria, one of the continent’s largest economies, exemplify the challenge. It generates about 5,000 megawatts of power to serve more than 200 million people, which is far below what is needed for industrial development, let alone AI infrastructure.

Africa needs investment partners to help develop the critical infrastructure it needs to thrive in this new world.

Tony Elumelu

Lack of access to electricity impacts lives. In sub-Saharan Africa — which represents only 16 percent of the global population but is home to 67 percent of the world’s extreme poor — even the simplest necessities that others take for granted remain impossibly out of reach.
Many Africans, desperate for better opportunities, embark on dangerous migration journeys, with 2024 marking the deadliest year on record. Those with access to modest savings, often pooled by family members, relocate to other parts of the world, resulting in a significant brain drain. Poverty and lack of opportunity fuel insurgency and instability.
This is not only Africa’s crisis — it is a problem for the entire world and one that must be treated with immediate action. 82My message has been consistent: the unique challenges faced by Africa must be included in these conversations. This is an urgent call for private sector leaders, governments and development partners to frame AI conversations in a way that addresses global equity and equality.
Just two weeks ago, I made the case for this during a panel discussion at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Annual Meetings in Washington, alongside Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the IMF; Mohammed Al-Jadaan, the Saudi minister of finance; Simon Johnson, the Ronald A. Kurtz professor of entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management; and Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer at Alphabet and Google.
I said during the discussion: “AI and productivity in the 21st century should help to democratize prosperity, not just be for a few to benefit. We must ensure that AI works for Africa by investing deliberately in digital infrastructure, electricity and human capital.”
I witness the consequences of this infrastructure deficit firsthand: small businesses struggle to stay afloat while operating on erratic power supplies. Thanks to the work of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, through which we have funded and supported more than 24,000 young entrepreneurs, we have real-time data on this. Our entrepreneurs are constantly limited not by ideas but by limited access to reliable electricity supplies — a generation of young Africans constrained by circumstances rather than capability.
What, then, is the way forward? Firstly, Africa needs investment partners to help develop the critical infrastructure it needs to thrive in this new world. It does not need charity, it needs investment.
As I often say, there is no other place to get the kind of returns you can get in Africa. My own investments tell a story of success: through Heirs Holdings, we demonstrate the commercial viability of African infrastructure; through our investments in Transcorp and Heirs Energies, we produce oil, generate and distribute power, and produce gas that fuels power plants, all of which bring us generous returns.
This is what I call “Africapitalism” in action: the use of private capital to solve public challenges and the belief that the African private sector must take the lead in efforts to drive economic development through long-term investments, creating both economic returns and social impact in the process.
Secondly, the conversation needs to be broadened to address the inequality. The prosperity divide threatens everyone. As I said at the Future Investment Initiative: “To some, it is about AI adoption. To others, it is about AI accessibility. We should, as a global community, play our own role in helping to create AI access so that all of us grow simultaneously.”
Thirdly, we must build for our future leaders. As I noted at the IMF meetings, our youth are creative, energetic and can play their own part in the development of Africa.
The AI era holds great promise for the continent. The question is not whether Africa has the talent to thrive in an AI-driven world; it demonstrably does. The question is what will it take to unleash its full potential? This is how we create significant change that will impact the world.

• Tony Elumelu is the chair of family-owned investment company Heirs Holdings and of United Bank for Africa. He and his wife launched the $100 million Tony Elumelu Foundation to empower young entrepreneurs across 54 African countries. In March 2025, he was appointed to the International Monetary Fund’s Advisory Council on Entrepreneurship and Growth.