The UAE is pouring billions of dollars into AI projects across Africa, entrenching itself in the continent’s digital future.
At the latest G20 leaders’ summit in Johannesburg on 22 November, UAE minister of state Saeed Bin Mubarak Al Hajeri pledged $1bn in AI infrastructure across the continent, signalling the next phase of Abu Dhabi’s attempt to position itself as a global AI power.
New research from The Observer’s Global AI Index shows the scale of that project. Since the launch of ChatGPT triggered a global race for AI dominance, the UAE has announced 20 memoranda of understanding with governments across Africa, for AI-related projects; and $2.2bn in pledged investment to build data centres and cloud computing infrastructure in Africa, in addition to the $1bn pledged at the G20.
Analysts say the UAE wants to become a “middle player” in the technological contest between the US and China. By funding data centres, cloud regions and AI hubs in emerging markets, “the UAE is basically pitching itself as a bridge between the global south’s development needs, and US and western technology,” says academic Dr Oz Hassan.
Analysis from The Observer found existing partnerships with four African governments, including a $90m data centre and cloud computing investment in Angola, and a $1bn AI innovation hub in Accra, Ghana. It has pledged a further 20 partnerships with governments including Rwanda, Senegal and Zimbabwe.
African governments have seen this story before. For decades, outside powers have used infrastructure investments to gain influence on the continent. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Soviet Union and China financed showcase projects, including dams, steel plants and a Tanzania–Zambia “freedom railway”, in newly independent states, hoping those big construction projects would secure long-term political loyalty.
In the 2000s, China returned as the dominant funder of African roads, railways and power plants through its Belt and Road Initiative. Analysts say the UAE’s AI investment drive represents the next chapter – a “digital Belt and Road”, as Hassan puts it.
For African governments, the UAE’s virtually unlimited capital and neutral positioning between the US and China make it an appealing investor, “with fewer political strings than Washington or Beijing”, says Mohammed Soliman from the Middle East Institute. The promise is that the partnerships will bring jobs and further investment.
For the UAE, the investment is a no-brainer. The appeal of these untapped markets includes “cheap labour, places where oversight and the rule of law are lax, and land is cheaper”, says Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
But critics warn that the UAE’s rapid expansion raises concerns about transparency and long-term dependency. “The UAE is somewhat reckless in [its] investment,” says Galperin. “They are less concerned with returns [than they are] in wielding power.”
The billions pushed by the state into AI is “dumb money”, she says, meaning capital deployed quickly without clear strategy or due diligence. In the same way that China’s Belt and Road projects in Africa were criticised as “white elephants”, wasting resources and concealing hidden economic and environmental costs, analysts such as Galperin fear the UAE is largely drawn by policy over a serious commitment to sustainable infrastructure.
In some cases, data centres have been slow to materialise, and many of the headline deals were announced with few concrete details. In May 2024, G42 – Abu Dhabi’s state-backed AI firm – and Microsoft announced a $1bn geothermal-powered data centre in Olkaria, Kenya, but news platform Semafor reports that the project is languishing because of problems “extending from grand geopolitics to quotidian financial snags”. Sara Martins Gomes, Deloitte’s director of AI and data in the Middle East, says the flurry of AI deals will require land, power, regulation and talent to become visibly operational, and therefore will take time to materialise.
Others say the real goal is to entrench Emirati influence in other countries’ digital infrastructures.
The Emirati big data analytics company Presight AI, which has been compared to the US software giant Palantir, is already active in eight African countries, which benefit from Presight’s “capital, compute infrastructure, technical depth”, says Soliman.
Once a country builds its data infrastructure around an Emirati provider, it’s not easily replaced. “Investing abroad lets Abu Dhabi lock itself into the emerging AI stack as a partner countries have to work with,” Soliman added.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative has had mixed results in Africa. In some countries, its investments improved connectivity, created jobs and contributed to overall economic growth. Others, such as Zambia and Kenya, have been struggling to repay debts, with projects often seen to not benefit local communities.
While the material benefits for recipient countries are yet to be determined, the UAE is already reaping the rewards of its new strategy, becoming a regional AI powerhouse. When it comes to the UAE’s “AI industrial revolution”, says analyst Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Saudi Arabia is “still playing catch up”.
Additional reporting by Serena Cesareo and Joe White