ALIWA Class V (Karfi Kuo) Fellow Bright Simons is challenging African leaders to think more critically about how artificial intelligence is deployed across the continent. In a recent article for ODI Global, Bright argues that while AI offers significant productivity gains, an overconcentration on applications in services and knowledge-based sectors could divert investment and talent from the infrastructure, technical capabilities, and industrial systems Africa needs for long-term economic transformation.
Bright makes the case for what he calls “convex leadership” — leaders capable of looking beyond quick wins and directing AI investment towards the harder-to-build foundations of industrial growth, including technical skills, sensors, infrastructure and the integration of Africa’s vast informal expertise into the formal economy. Ultimately, he argues that Africa’s AI opportunity will depend not simply on how quickly the technology is adopted, but on whether leaders make deliberate choices that translate technological progress into broader and more sustainable economic development.
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