Without digitalisation Africa cannot fully benefit from positive impact of AI – Bawumia at LSE Africa Summit

Former Vice President, Mahamudu Bawumia, has pointed out relationship between digitalisation and artificial intelligence.

Delivering a keynote address at the London School of Economics and Political Science’s Africa Summit in London on Saturday 28 March 2026, Bawumia explained that AI is the latest transformation of the digital age, and countries which have not fully embraced digitalisation cannot effectively deploy AI, which he said will shape everyday life.

“The digital age has now entered the phase of artificial intelligence (AI) and as the e-governance Academy (eGA) of Estonia has put it, “the coming decade will be shaped by the integration of artificial intelligence into governance and every day life,he said.

With digitalisation another form of the digital age, having come earlier, Bawumia asked whether African countries could leapfrog digitalization to embrace artificial intelligence phase.

The short answer, Dr. Bawumia noted, “is no,” warning that Africa must rather be “very awake to, and fully participate in the artificial intelligence phase of the digital era.”

Bawumia noted that according to the International Monetary Fund’s AI preparedness Index (2023) a number of countries in Africa who are  currently most prepared for the AI revolution, including Botswana, Cape Verde, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco, Namibia, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Tunisia, and South Africa are countries who are advanced in digitalisation.

“It is not a coincidence that these also happen to be amongst the most digitalised countries on the continent.”

“Indeed, AI is not possible without data and a data-based economy is not possible without digitalization because without digitalisation, you cannot have the massive datasets and computations required for today’s AI models.”