The African Development Bank and the United Nations Development Programme have launched a joint initiative to mobilise $10 billion for artificial intelligence across Africa by 2035. Unveiled at the Nairobi AI Forum in February, the plan targets 40 million new jobs and an additional $1 trillion in continental GDP over the next decade.
The initiative funnels investment into five foundations the AfDB identifies as prerequisites for AI readiness: data infrastructure, computing capacity, digital skills, ethical governance, and capital access. Rather than backing individual projects, the programme builds the underlying systems that allow AI to scale across sectors and borders.
Private sector partners join the AfDB and UNDP as co-designers of the initiative, with funding channelled through a mix of equity investment and debt financing. A ten-month roadshow launching immediately will target governments, corporations, and development partners to build out the partnership before the first capital is deployed.
The initiative draws on an AfDB report published in June 2025 which projected that inclusive AI deployment could add nearly one-third of the continent’s current economic output by 2035. The Nairobi AI Forum, which gathered governments, tech investors, and development institutions across two days in Nairobi, provided the political momentum to convert that analysis into a funded programme.
The Bigger Picture Africa has watched previous technology waves — mobile money aside — generate value that flowed largely to foreign platforms and investors. The $10 billion initiative is structured explicitly to avoid that outcome, with its emphasis on local data ecosystems, African AI entrepreneurs, and continental governance frameworks. Whether the capital arrives on that timeline is a separate question: multilateral fundraising targets of this scale routinely fall short, and 2035 is far enough away that accountability remains a challenge.
Source: African Business
