On 23rd July 2025, the United States unveiled its comprehensive AI Action Plan, a major milestone in shaping how one of the world’s leading AI powers intends to secure its technological future. This is a significant step toward ensuring that AI development proceeds with robust national security safeguards and clear crisis preparedness measures. However, as researchers and policy makers in Africa and the wider Global South, we must confront a stark reality: while the Global North moves to secure its AI frontiers, many nations in Africa have yet to build even the basic institutional frameworks to protect their people, economies, and sovereignty from the profound risks that AI systems pose.
1. AI National Security Must Not Be an Afterthought
The US AI Action Plan rightly emphasizes hardening critical infrastructure, monitoring foreign capabilities, controlling sensitive exports, and guarding against sabotage of domestic innovation. Yet across much of the Global South, and Africa in particular, these conversations have barely started.
Many African countries lack:
- Dedicated national security frameworks for AI.
- Clear ethical sourcing and export controls for cobalt(DRC), tantalum(DRC, Rwanda, Nigeria), etc.
- Independent monitoring of foreign and local AI developers operating in key sectors.
- Regional-level (e.g. ECOWAS, SADC, UMA, EAC, etc.) collaboration on data and computing power
This gap poses significant strategic risks. Africa possesses valuable datasets, essential chip-manufacturing minerals, and expanding digital networks that hold considerable geopolitical importance. The absence of robust protective frameworks exposes African nations to manipulation as channels for unauthorized data harvesting or covert influence operations using AI-enabled tools
Many African countries currently fall into the trap of exporting raw materials at minimal prices while forfeiting opportunities to develop domestic value-added industries such as battery manufacturing, semiconductor assembly, or electronics production. Strategic export controls would enable these nations to capture greater economic benefits for local communities while building industrial capacity that allows meaningful participation in the global AI supply chain.
Rather than serving merely as resource extraction points, African countries could leverage intelligent trade policies to transform their mineral wealth into technological capabilities, ensuring that the continent’s contributions to AI development translate into sustainable economic growth and technological sovereignty
2. A Vacuum of Crisis Response and Incident Monitoring
The US plan’s call for an AI Information Sharing and Analysis Center (AI-ISAC) and updated incident response doctrines is instructive. Africa has no equivalent. There are no clear protocols for what happens when an AI system fails catastrophically, amplifies disinformation, or is weaponized. Regional bodies like the African Union or ECOWAS have not prioritized AI security coordination, leaving individual states exposed.
If we do not build the capacity to monitor AI risks in real time, we will not have the resilience to respond when, not if, something goes wrong.
3. How Are We Vetting the Builders?
As the US bolsters vetting of contractors and frontier labs, we must ask: Who is vetting the actors building AI systems on the continent today? Many AI pilots in Africa are funded and developed externally, often with minimal local oversight. Without clear standards for who may access and process sensitive data, from electoral rolls to health records, we remain vulnerable to misuse, leaks, and manipulation.
4. AI Talent: The Cornerstone of True Preparedness
Ultimately, the greatest security gap is not hardware or law, it is people. It is critical to close talent gaps. But for the Global South, this is not just a workforce issue; it is the whole strategy. We must invest in developing a local AI scientists, engineers, auditors, and policymakers etc.
An African preparedness strategy must:
- Expand AI education at scale, from coding basics to advanced machine learning research.
- Create incentives for African AI graduates to build on the continent.
- Equip civil servants, judges, security agencies, and regulators to understand and scrutinize AI deployments.
- Foster partnerships that build our research capacity, in addition to our data being used to train models elsewhere.
- Establish clear ethical sourcing standards and export measures for critical minerals
5. A Call for Proactive Action
Policymakers, regional bodies, and international partners must prioritize:
- Developing AI national security strategies rooted in local realities.
- Establishing crisis monitoring and incident response protocols.
- Implementing export controls and vetting requirements for sensitive AI projects.
- Funding local talent pipelines to ensure we have the skills to build, audit, and govern AI responsibly.
In short, preparedness is not just a line item in an action plan; it is an investment in people, trust, and sovereignty.
AIPG stands ready to work with governments, civil society, and the private sector to help shape this agenda for the continent. If Africa is to benefit from the AI revolution, we must be equally serious about securing our future.
About AIPG The Institute for AI Policy and Governance (AIPG) advances contextually relevant, rights-based, and secure AI policy across Africa and the wider Global South. We believe in local talent, strong institutions, and collaborative frameworks as the bedrock of responsible AI adoption.
Institute for AI Policy & Governance 