Africa’s artificial intelligence story has entered a new phase as against whe the continent’s technology companies largely consumed AI infrastructure built elsewhere, relying on global cloud providers, overseas data centres and foreign access to high-performance computing.

We built the cloud regions first and have still not decided who will govern them. A continental index has now put a number on the gap.

Africa’s AI opportunity may lie beyond chatbots, with AI transforming mining, business processes and other industries that power its economy.