The digital footprint of Silicon Valley is expanding rapidly across Africa, and a growing chorus of analysts, activists, and African leaders are sounding the alarm: the tools being deployed across the continent may look modern, but their effects echo old patterns of control and extraction.
From data centres built on African soil to mobile payment platforms that handle billions of dollars in transactions, the infrastructure of the digital economy is being installed at speed across sub-Saharan Africa. What concerns observers is not the technology itself, but the ownership structures behind it, the data it generates, and where that data ultimately flows.
The Architecture of a New Dependency
Africa is home to some of the world’s fastest-growing internet user bases. Smartphone penetration is rising sharply, driven by affordable devices and expanding mobile network coverage. But alongside this connectivity has come an uncomfortable reality: the platforms that Africans use most—search engines, social media networks, cloud storage services, and mobile payment systems—are overwhelmingly owned and operated by foreign corporations, predominantly based in the United States.
When an African entrepreneur builds a business on a foreign cloud platform, they generate data. That data, in many cases, does not remain on the continent. It travels to servers in Europe or North America, where it contributes to the training of artificial intelligence models, the refinement of advertising algorithms, and the generation of profits that rarely return to the communities that created them.
“We are not just users,” said one African technology policy researcher who asked not to be identified. “We are the raw material. The data we produce is the new oil, and right now, others are refining it and selling it back to us.”
The Infrastructure Question
The physical infrastructure of the internet in Africa raises its own set of concerns. Submarine cables landing on African coasts carry vast quantities of data, but the exchange points where traffic is routed—the so-called internet exchange points—are often located outside the continent, meaning African data must leave the region to be processed and returned.
There are efforts to change this. Several African governments have launched initiatives to build local data centres, reduce dependency on foreign cloud providers, and develop homegrown AI capabilities. Kenya recently halted plans for a major foreign-backed data centre following public debate about data sovereignty. South Africa and Nigeria have both announced digital economy strategies that prioritise local infrastructure development.
Regulatory Gaps and the Race to Close Them
African regulators are acutely aware of the asymmetry. The European Union has imposed strict data protection rules through the General Data Protection Regulation, giving it leverage over how global platforms operate. Africa, by contrast, has a patchwork of national laws, some strong, many weak, and some non-existent.
The African Union’s Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection, adopted in 2014, was a step forward, but ratification has been uneven and enforcement remains a challenge. Mobile money services, which have transformed financial inclusion across East and West Africa, are one area where African regulators have managed to retain significant control. M-Pesa, operated by Safaricom, processes enormous volumes of transactions, but the platform operates under Kenyan Central Bank oversight.
A Conversation the Continent Cannot Afford to Skip
For African governments grappling with the dual challenge of attracting investment while protecting sovereignty, the path is narrow. Digital infrastructure is expensive. Foreign investment can bridge the gap. But investment without conditions tends to serve the investor’s interests first.
The comparison to colonialism is uncomfortable for some, but it is increasingly made in academic and policy circles. The difference, proponents of the analogy argue, is that this time, African nations are aware of what is at stake. Whether they have the tools and the collective will to act before the architecture is permanently set in place is the defining question.
This article was produced by NowInAfrica. For more coverage of African affairs, visit nowinafrica.com