Ahead of his participation at AI Everything Kenya X GITEX Kenya, Frank Moreno Garcia of the European Artificial Intelligence Office examines the structural barriers to AI independence in East Africa – and the strategic pathways to overcome them.

As the global AI race intensifies and nations accelerate transformational digitalisation roadmaps, East Africa faces a pivotal moment: remain a consumer of externally sourced AI technologies – or assert itself on the world stage through digital sovereignty.

With limited representation in global AI governance and immense reliance on external cloud services, dependency risks are deepening. Yet according to Frank Moreno Garcia, Chief AI Strategy Officer at the European Artificial Intelligence Office, a once-in-a-generation opportunity awaits East Africa.

It’s the opportunity to transition from dependency to leadership, overcoming structural constraints through a digital sovereignty strategy that yields unprecedented socio-economic value.

This perspective comes ahead of AI Everything Kenya X GITEX Kenya, East Africa’s premier platform for AI, innovation, and emerging technologies. The inaugural edition takes place from 19–21 May in Nairobi, welcoming regional and global digital economy stakeholders to advance sovereign, inclusive, and investment-driven AI ecosystems across East Africa. The Inclusive AI Summit will take place at the Sarit Expo Centre on 19 May, followed by the AI Everything Kenya Expo and Conference on 20–21 May, at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre.

A distinguished AI strategist specialising in responsible AI adoption, Frank Moreno Garcia advises on ethics, governance, and innovation across Europe’s AI ecosystem, and few are better positioned to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing East Africa in its quest for digital sovereignty.

Ahead of his participation in Nairobi, where he features in the opening-day Inclusive AI Summit as an expert panellist, joining a headline discussion titled ‘Digital Sovereignty for the AI Age: Control Without Isolation’, he shed light on the critical bottlenecks requiring a resolution.

“A primary challenge is structural dependence on foreign platforms and cloud providers, limiting bargaining power and value capture,” he revealed. “There is also fragmentation across countries. Inconsistent rules weaken scale and coordination, while constraints in compute, financing, and advanced skills risk turning sovereignty into aspiration rather than execution.”

From dependency to execution: Closing the sovereignty gap

As Garcia highlights, dependence on external infrastructure is particularly prevalent. Over 80% of continental Africa’s AI cloud infrastructure is controlled by foreign entities, limiting the ability to regulate AI governance independently. Moreover, Africa accounts for less than 1% of total global data centre capacity, magnifying that an overwhelming majority of AI processing – and therefore data control – transpires outside the continent.

Europe has already moved from AI principles to enforceable frameworks, underscored by the progressive rollout of key initiatives, including the European AI Strategy, AI Continent Action Plan, Apply AI Alliance, and GenAI4EU.

Drawing on his experience and expertise, Garcia insists that East Africa can emulate Europe’s digital sovereignty and AI infrastructure advancements, leveraging key learnings and use cases to implement and accelerate a credible digital sovereignty strategy in one of the world’s most substantial untapped growth frontiers.

“Meaningful control over critical infrastructure and data governance is a non-negotiable building block of digital sovereignty, and this applies to cloud, connectivity, and sensitive workloads,” he continued. “Another is strong local talent and applied research capacity, spanning engineers, policymakers, and regulators with AI literacy.”

Garcia elaborated further, identifying credible institutions and enforcement capability as a third foundation for digital sovereignty, “so rules can be applied consistently and confidently, not just declared on paper”.

With these insights in mind, an obvious question arises: can East Africa reduce foreign dependency and build a genuinely credible digital sovereign plan? While the years ahead will ultimately provide a definitive answer, recent developments suggest that East Africa is preparing to achieve precisely that, as part of a collective continental push.

Momentum is no longer theoretical – it’s tangible

Mirroring the level of unified coordination seen in Europe and elsewhere, the African Union (AU) adopted its first Continental AI Strategy in 2024. The AI for Africa initiative – co-launched by UNESCO, the AU, and G2O – serves as an operational mechanism for multilateral cooperation, structuring delivery across its key action areas.

Together, the strategy sets the vision, and the initiative contributes to its implementation, creating a unified framework for infrastructure, capacity building, and policy to avoid digital dependency.

With AI earmarked to generate US$1.2 trillion for Africa’s economy by 2030 – equivalent to 6% of its GDP – East Africa could capture a significant share of this opportunity, especially as regional nations increasingly position themselves for the future AI economy.

In addition to being members of the African Union (AU) and stakeholders in the Continental AI Strategy and AI for Africa initiative, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda have each adopted national AI strategies, while Tanzania is advancing a draft framework. Moreover, global infrastructure players are moving upstream into East African markets, anticipating demand for AI workloads.

With international tech giants Microsoft and G42 directing capital into a Kenyan data centre campus, and NVIDIA supporting the “Aeonian Project” to build a green AI facility in Uganda, such examples signal a paradigm shift towards locally controlled AI infrastructure. In turn, another obvious question arises: what exactly does the future hold for East Africa?

Control of compute will define the next decade

Having discussed positive outcomes from an EU standpoint, Garcia drew on Europe’s experience with AI governance to outline what East African nations could do differently to accelerate sovereignty without slowing innovation.

“Focus on high-impact AI use cases, not blanket regulation of developers or startups,” he replied. “Regulation should enable experimentation through sandboxes and phased oversight, especially for early-stage innovation.

“Rather than a purely defensive policy, sovereignty should be framed as a development accelerator and intricately linked to essential sectors such as agriculture, health, and fintech.”

In Garcia’s view, such an approach would accelerate progress towards an ambition shared by every East African nation: AI independence—the ability to host, govern, adapt, and switch AI systems while integrating globally.

“AI independence for East Africa does not mean isolation; it means strategic autonomy, choice, and interoperability.” he concluded. “Consequentially, this can unlock a raft of socio-economic benefits: local value creation, jobs growth, improved public services, financial inclusion, and AI solutions tailored to regional realities.”

At a time when over 80% of the continent’s AI infrastructure remains externally controlled, and less than 1% of global compute capacity resides within its borders, East Africa’s AI future will not be defined by how quickly it adopts AI, but by how much it owns. Join the critical conversations shaping the region’s AI and digital infrastructure evolution at AI Everything Kenya X GITEX Kenya, as regional and international stakeholders converge to advance sovereign, inclusive, and investment-driven AI ecosystems across East Africa.