The Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE, has called on African countries to move beyond policy conversations and take concrete, coordinated action to build the computing infrastructure required to power the continent’s artificial intelligence (AI) ambitions.
Inuwa made the call during a panel session titled “Africa’s AI Compute Capacity—Sovereign or Shared” at GITEX Nigeria 2026, where technology leaders examined Africa’s capacity to develop and sustain the infrastructure needed to drive AI innovation.
The NITDA DG said Africa’s AI compute challenge extended beyond the ownership of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), identifying technology ownership, reliable energy supply and digital infrastructure as critical foundations for closing the continent’s infrastructure gap.
According to him, large-scale computing requires significant energy, making dependable power supply one of the major constraints to the development of AI infrastructure in Africa.
He therefore stressed the need for African countries to adopt a coordinated approach to developing the infrastructure and systems necessary to support the continent’s digital transformation.
Inuwa urged African nations to move away from working in silos and embrace stronger continental collaboration, noting that regional cooperation could provide the scale required to attract investment and develop sustainable AI infrastructure.
He cited the European Union as an example of regional collaboration and called for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to be leveraged as a platform for creating a stronger and more integrated digital market.
Such a market, he said, would help attract investment in AI and computing infrastructure while enabling African countries to benefit from shared opportunities across the continent.
The NITDA DG also highlighted the importance of data classification in achieving digital sovereignty, particularly as governments and organisations increasingly deploy AI systems that rely on vast quantities of data.
He noted that sensitive data relating to defence, healthcare and finance requires appropriate protection and jurisdictional safeguards to ensure that such information is hosted and managed under clear regulatory frameworks.
Inuwa pointed to Nigeria’s Data Protection Act and recently issued sovereign cloud regulatory instruments as important steps towards establishing clearer rules for the hosting and management of different categories of data.
He maintained that Africa’s digital sovereignty would depend not only on policies but also on the continent’s ability to develop the physical and technological infrastructure needed to implement those policies.
The NITDA DG consequently called for a decisive shift from dialogue to implementation, stressing that Africa must translate its digital policies and commitments into infrastructure capable of securing its technological future.
“We have had enough talk and conventions. What we need now is action, as nations and as a continent, to build the infrastructure that will secure our digital future,” he said.
His position reinforced the growing push for African governments, technology stakeholders and regional institutions to work together in addressing the continent’s infrastructure deficits and creating the computing capacity necessary to compete in the rapidly evolving global AI economy.
