Digital Dominance And Neo-Imperialism
In Abuja, the Nigeria AI Collective, under the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, hosted the BUILD Conference from October 21 to 23, 2026, themed “Building Africa’s Shared Compute and AI…
The BUILD Conference brought together government officials, technologists and policy voices to examine how Africa can build sovereign artificial intelligence and computing infrastructure rather than remaining dependent on foreign-owned cloud and compute capacity. The Nigeria AI Collective's involvement reflects the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy's broader push to position Nigeria as a hub for AI development on the continent, following earlier moves such as the National AI Strategy and investments in data centres and digital skills.
The "neo-imperialism" framing points to a recurring concern among African tech policymakers: that reliance on compute, cloud services and AI models controlled by a handful of foreign (mostly Western and Chinese) tech giants could entrench a new form of economic and technological dependency, with African data and value extracted abroad rather than retained locally. Coverage from Daily Trust and Leadership both centre on the conference's themes and framing around shared compute and digital sovereignty, though neither report yet details concrete funding commitments, timelines, or which specific infrastructure projects — if any — emerged from the three-day event.