World Bank: Kenya among three hubs of AI activity in sub-Saharan Africa

The World Bank says artificial intelligence (AI) activity in sub-Saharan Africa is heavily concentrated in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, and that most use remains basic. The finding is in the October 2026 edition of its Africa Economic Update, titled Building AI Readiness, which Business Daily reported on 7 October.

Among larger firms, AI usage was 61 per cent in the United States and 44 per cent across Kenya and Nigeria, the report says. It adds that "some African firms are adopting AI at surprisingly high rates, but mostly shallowly."

The report describes most countries in the region as being in an "adopt" and "adapt" phase, relying on off-the-shelf tools and localised applications. It says Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa account for much of the region's innovation, venture capital investment, research output and advanced applications.

Across the region, AI use focuses on learning, office and administrative tasks, software development and personal assistance, according to the report. Access to generative AI tools has expanded, but their integration into business operations, public services and frontline service delivery "remains limited."

On individual use, the share of the working-age population using generative AI in the first quarter of 2026 ranged from 7.2 per cent in Rwanda to 23.1 per cent in South Africa, with 16 countries below 10 per cent.

Governments are early-stage users too. The report says 90.8 per cent of AI systems identified through procurement records supported internal functions, and only 1.4 per cent used generative AI.

The World Bank lists the gaps it says hold adoption back: about 900 million Africans are offline, and the continent has 18 per cent of the world's population but 0.6 per cent of global data-centre capacity. Only about 5 per cent of African data centres are AI-ready, it says. Other gaps include electricity, skills, data and computing infrastructure.

The report sets out two scenarios. Under a highly ambitious "full activation" case, AI could add as much as US$1 trillion to African GDP by 2035, create 35 million to 40 million digital jobs and generate almost US$150 billion in annual tax revenue. At current preparedness levels, it estimates AI integration in sub-Saharan Africa would add only 0.2 per cent to 4 per cent of cumulative GDP over the next decade, and it says even that range assumes faster adoption than current infrastructure supports.

It names Kenya's M-Shule as an example of a practical, low-cost tool that improved early literacy. The report notes that figures for such cases are reach and scale figures, not independently evaluated impact estimates.

The AI chapter was released with the bank's regional growth forecast. In a press release on 6 October, the World Bank projected growth in sub-Saharan Africa to rise from 4.1 per cent in 2025 to 4.3 per cent in 2026. The release says the region's greatest opportunity lies in affordable, locally adapted small AI applications for education, agriculture, health, finance, logistics and public administration, rather than frontier AI systems.