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Last November, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced a Sh130 billion ($1 billion) investment initiative to expand artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and applications across Africa. The plan is to position AI as a core pillar of development cooperation rather than a future-facing concept.
The Standard had a sit down with UAE Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for Development and International Organisations, H.E. Sultan Mohammed Al Shamsi who shared how this funding seeks to transform businesses and the landscape of technology in Kenya and beyond.
He shares that the UAE’s AI initiative reflects the country’s conviction that artificial intelligence can be a powerful catalyst for inclusive economic growth and sustainable development across Africa.
At the core of the initiative are Smart Resilient Future Zones (SRFZs)—AI-enabled development corridors co-designed with African governments to accelerate digital infrastructure, public-service transformation, and private-sector growth.
The initiative seeks to mobilise the full UAE AI value chain, with UAE private-sector firms delivering integrated solutions spanning cloud and compute infrastructure, data platforms, and deployment-ready AI applications. These solutions are designed for rapid implementation across priority sectors such as government services, healthcare, education, agriculture, and climate resilience.
What specific Al infrastructure and programmes will the $1 billion initiative fund? Is it data centres, cloud capacity, public-sector Al or skills development?
Structurally, the Sh130 billion commitment is designed to crowd in international capital, catalysing participation from multilateral development banks, venture capital, project finance, and sovereign impact funds. This blended-finance approach aims to scale viable AI projects beyond pilot stages and anchor long-term investment ecosystems.
On the ground, African partners—including ministries, telecom operators, and social enterprises—deploy, co-develop and scale these AI tools, ensuring local relevance, institutional ownership and skills transfer.
The Abu Dhabi Exports Office (ADEX) acts as the UAE’s designated steward of the initiative, coordinating public and private contributions and aligning financing, technology deployment and partnerships under the broader AI for Development framework.
How has this investment been structured? Is it a loan, technical assistance, or human resources?
The UAE’s investment in AI for Development has been structured as a comprehensive investment integrating multiple components, aiming to achieve sustainable impact. The investment includes targeted funding for AI projects across the African continent, in addition to technical and technological support in implementing AI solutions.
Human resources contribute through the training and development of local capacities in AI, including engineers, researchers and youth.
It is not provided as a traditional loan but rather as an investment reflecting a longterm commitment to sustainable development through capacity building and technology knowledge transfer.
Which African countries and sectors are prioritised?
The initial rollout of the initiative is not structured around a fixed list of countries, but rather around readiness, demand and scalability criteria. This allows the programme to move quickly in early-mover markets while remaining open to expansion across the continent.
Early engagement is focused on African countries that demonstrate: Political commitment to digital transformation and public-sector reform, baseline digital and connectivity infrastructure, including telecoms and data availability, strong local partners, such as ministries, national digital agencies, telecom operators, and innovation ecosystems, potential to act as regional hubs, enabling cross-border spillovers.
In practice, this points to large and fast-growing economies and regional gateways—including parts of West, East and Southern Africa—where AI infrastructure and applications can be scaled nationally and then replicated regionally.
Do you have particular sectors you are targeting? What gaps have you noted in these sectors to justify this investment?
The initiative targets several key sectors where AI can improve performance and enhance efficiency, notably education, health, smart agriculture, government services and fintech.
Many African countries face gaps such as insufficient digital infrastructure, lack of local technical skills in AI and data and ineffective systems in areas like healthcare and agriculture.
These gaps strongly justify the UAE investment, as AI can improve services and productivity in these vital areas.
The initiative prioritises sectors where AI can deliver measurable development outcomes and where governments play a central role as anchor clients: Public-sector and government services, digital government platforms, service automation, identity systems, and data-driven policymaking have been chosen because they create immediate demand, improve state capacity, and de-risk private investment.
In healthcare, AI-enabled diagnostics, health-system analytics, and service delivery optimisation prioritised for its strong social impact and alignment with development financing.
In education and skills, digital learning platforms, AI-assisted teaching tools, and workforce-training systems are critical for long-term AI adoption and local talent development.
In agriculture and food security, there is predictive analytics, precision agriculture, and supply-chain optimisation.
Will the investments in these areas be country-specific, or will they cut across different economies?
The initiative adopts a flexible approach based on the national readiness of each targeted African country. Investments are specifically tailored to the actual needs of each country. However, the investment will include overlapping projects that may benefit multiple countries through regional partnerships, particularly in digital education and AI ecosystems that can be deployed across countries with similar characteristics in specific sectors. The goal is to ensure knowledge transfer and localization of solutions suitable for local challenges.
How does the UAE ensure Al investments support local capacity-building, digital sovereignty, and inclusive growth, rather than widening digital divides?
The initiative is led by the UAE but jointly owned and shaped by African governments and global partners, reflecting a collaborative model that combines UAE capabilities with African leadership and international expertise. This shared ownership ensures alignment with national priorities, strengthens accountability, and reinforces long-term sustainability.
The initiative builds structured corridors of cooperation, beginning with foundational digital and AI infrastructure in priority sectors such as health, agriculture, logistics, digital government, and financial services.
These corridors are co-designed with African governments to ensure that UAE technical, financial, and operational capabilities are directly aligned with local development strategies.
Delivery is anchored in trusted public- and private-sector partnerships and grounded in country ownership, enabling scalable, locally relevant, and sovereign AI-enabled development.
How does the UAE stand to benefit from this investment?
Through this investment, the UAE becomes a key supporter of development in Africa and contributes to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly in the technological fields.
In addition, the UAE can benefit from strengthening economic and trade ties with African countries, opening new opportunities in digital trade, technology, and innovation. This type of cooperation helps enhance the UAE’s reputation as a leading center in artificial intelligence technology and also provides opportunities to expand into new markets, leveraging the strong bilateral relations that will be established with African governments.
How critical is the adoption of AI for African economies?
AI is a critical element for achieving sustainable development in African economies. By improving public sector efficiency, boosting productivity in key sectors like agriculture and health, and enabling local innovation, AI can significantly stimulate economic growth. In the digital age, AI is a key tool for enabling digital transformation across sectors, equipping African governments with the tools to accelerate development and achieve strategic visions such as the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
African economies, unlike their developed peers, have competing needs, especially socio-economic such as education and health. How can these governments be enticed to set aside their own resources to invest in AI?
By providing tangible technical support and targeted investments to develop digital infrastructure, the UAE can encourage African governments to allocate their own resources for AI investment.
Additionally, governments can be incentivised by highlighting the expected economic and social benefits of AI applications in improving education systems, upgrading healthcare systems, and delivering more efficient public services.
Such investments demonstrate to governments how AI can be a tool to achieve sustainable development and national objectives at a lower cost.
What economic dynamics or changes do you foresee on full implementation of the initial?
This investment will enhance digital infrastructure, stimulate innovation, and create new jobs in technology and research. Expansion in fintech and digital education will help reduce economic and social gaps, driving inclusive economic growth. In the long term, the investment will strengthen economic independence and support financial sustainability in the beneficiary countries.
What kind of complementary support are you expecting from African governments as this investment is being made?
African governments are expected to provide complementary support in the form of regulatory facilitation, legal frameworks to encourage innovation, support for local training, and enabling public-private partnerships. Governments will need to closely collaborate with the UAE in project implementation, ensuring effective coordination between local and international institutions. Support also includes implementing appropriate policies to enhance international cooperation and support investments in digital sectors.
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Last November, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced a Sh130 billion ($1 billion) investment initiative to expand artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and applications across Africa. The plan is to position AI as a core pillar of development cooperation rather than a future-facing concept.
The Standard had a sit down with UAE Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for Development and International Organisations, H.E. Sultan Mohammed Al Shamsi who shared how this funding seeks to transform businesses and the landscape of technology in Kenya and beyond.
He shares that the UAE’s AI initiative reflects the country’s conviction that artificial intelligence can be a powerful catalyst for inclusive economic growth and sustainable development across Africa.
At the core of the initiative are Smart Resilient Future Zones (SRFZs)—AI-enabled development corridors co-designed with African governments to accelerate digital infrastructure, public-service transformation, and private-sector growth.
The initiative seeks to mobilise the full UAE AI value chain, with UAE private-sector firms delivering integrated solutions spanning cloud and compute infrastructure, data platforms, and deployment-ready AI applications. These solutions are designed for rapid implementation across priority sectors such as government services, healthcare, education, agriculture, and climate resilience.
What specific Al infrastructure and programmes will the $1 billion initiative fund? Is it data centres, cloud capacity, public-sector Al or skills development?
Structurally, the Sh130 billion commitment is
designed to crowd in international capital
, catalysing participation from multilateral development banks, venture capital, project finance, and sovereign impact funds. This blended-finance approach aims to scale viable AI projects beyond pilot stages and anchor long-term investment ecosystems.
On the ground, African partners—including ministries, telecom operators, and social enterprises—deploy, co-develop and scale these AI tools, ensuring local relevance, institutional ownership and skills transfer.
The Abu Dhabi Exports Office (ADEX) acts as the UAE’s designated steward of the initiative, coordinating public and private contributions and aligning financing, technology deployment and partnerships under the broader AI for Development framework.
How has this investment been structured? Is it a loan, technical assistance, or human resources?
The UAE’s investment in AI for Development has been structured as a comprehensive investment integrating multiple components, aiming to achieve sustainable impact. The investment includes targeted funding for AI projects across the African continent, in addition to technical and technological support in implementing AI solutions.
Human resources contribute through the training and development of local capacities in AI, including engineers, researchers and youth.
It is not provided as a traditional loan but rather as an investment reflecting a longterm commitment to sustainable development through capacity building and technology knowledge transfer.
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Which African countries and sectors are prioritised?
The initial rollout of the initiative is not structured around a fixed list of countries, but rather around readiness, demand and scalability criteria. This allows the programme to move quickly in early-mover markets while remaining open to expansion across the continent.
Early engagement is focused on African countries that demonstrate: Political commitment to digital transformation and public-sector reform, baseline digital and connectivity infrastructure, including telecoms and data availability, strong local partners, such as ministries, national digital agencies, telecom operators, and innovation ecosystems, potential to act as regional hubs, enabling cross-border spillovers.
In practice, this points to large and fast-growing economies and regional gateways—including parts of West, East and Southern Africa—where AI infrastructure and applications can be scaled nationally and then replicated regionally.
Do you have particular sectors you are targeting? What gaps have you noted in these sectors to justify this investment?
The initiative targets several key sectors where AI can improve performance and enhance efficiency, notably education, health, smart agriculture, government services and fintech.
Many African countries face gaps such as insufficient digital infrastructure, lack of local technical skills in AI and data and ineffective systems in areas like healthcare and agriculture.
These gaps strongly justify the UAE investment, as AI can improve services and productivity in these vital areas.
The initiative prioritises sectors where AI can deliver measurable development outcomes and where governments play a central role as anchor clients: Public-sector and government services, digital government platforms, service automation, identity systems, and
data-driven policymaking
have been chosen because they create immediate demand, improve state capacity, and de-risk private investment.
In healthcare, AI-enabled diagnostics, health-system analytics, and service delivery optimisation prioritised for its strong social impact and alignment with development financing.
In education and skills, digital learning platforms, AI-assisted teaching tools, and workforce-training systems are critical for long-term AI adoption and local talent development.
In agriculture and food security, there is predictive analytics, precision agriculture, and supply-chain optimisation.
Will the investments in these areas be country-specific, or will they cut across different economies?
The initiative adopts a flexible approach based on the national readiness of each targeted African country. Investments are specifically tailored to the actual needs of each country. However, the investment will include overlapping projects that may benefit multiple countries through regional partnerships, particularly in digital education and AI ecosystems that can be deployed across countries with similar characteristics in specific sectors. The goal is to ensure knowledge transfer and localization of solutions suitable for local challenges.
How does the UAE ensure Al investments support local capacity-building, digital sovereignty, and inclusive growth, rather than widening digital divides?
The initiative is led by the UAE but jointly owned and shaped by African governments and global partners, reflecting a collaborative model that combines UAE capabilities with African leadership and international expertise. This shared ownership ensures alignment with national priorities, strengthens accountability, and reinforces long-term sustainability.
The initiative builds structured corridors of cooperation, beginning with foundational digital and AI infrastructure in priority sectors such as health, agriculture, logistics, digital government, and financial services.
These corridors are co-designed with African governments to ensure that UAE technical, financial, and operational capabilities are directly aligned with local development strategies.
Delivery is anchored in trusted public- and private-sector partnerships and grounded in country ownership, enabling scalable, locally relevant, and sovereign AI-enabled development.
How does the UAE stand to benefit from this investment?
Through this investment, the UAE becomes a key supporter of development in Africa and contributes to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly in the technological fields.
In addition, the UAE can benefit from strengthening economic and trade ties with African countries, opening new opportunities in digital trade, technology, and innovation. This type of cooperation helps enhance the UAE’s reputation as a leading center in artificial intelligence technology and also provides opportunities to expand into new markets, leveraging the strong bilateral relations that will be established with African governments.
How critical is the adoption of AI for African economies?
AI is a critical element for achieving sustainable development in African economies. By improving public sector efficiency, boosting productivity in key sectors like agriculture and health, and enabling local innovation, AI can significantly stimulate economic growth. In the digital age, AI is a key tool for enabling digital transformation across sectors, equipping African governments with the tools to accelerate development and achieve strategic visions such as the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
African economies, unlike their developed peers, have competing needs, especially socio-economic such as education and health. How can these governments be enticed to set aside their own resources to invest in AI?
By providing tangible technical support and targeted investments to develop digital infrastructure, the UAE can encourage African governments to allocate their own resources for AI investment.
Additionally, governments can be incentivised by highlighting the expected economic and social benefits of AI applications in improving education systems, upgrading healthcare systems, and delivering more efficient public services.
Such investments demonstrate to governments how AI can be a tool to achieve sustainable development and national objectives at a lower cost.
What economic dynamics or changes do you foresee on full implementation of the initial?
This investment will enhance digital infrastructure, stimulate innovation, and create new jobs in technology and research. Expansion in fintech and digital education will help reduce economic and social gaps, driving inclusive economic growth. In the long term, the investment will strengthen economic independence and support financial sustainability in the beneficiary countries.
What kind of
complementary support
are you expecting from African governments as this investment is being made?
African governments are expected to provide complementary support in the form of regulatory facilitation, legal frameworks to encourage innovation, support for local training, and enabling public-private partnerships. Governments will need to closely collaborate with the UAE in project implementation, ensuring effective coordination between local and international institutions. Support also includes implementing appropriate policies to enhance international cooperation and support investments in digital sectors.
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channel
on WhatsApp
By Graham Kajilwa