Africa’s $17bn AI market, with 30% growth in 2030 puts continent in global innovation race

·        AI-related jobs in Africa to grow by 200% by 2025

·        Clinify, Nigerian AI healthcare start-up, ranked among global change-makers

Ben Eguzozie

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) mania that has been transforming business, government and society across the world has caught up with Africa as the continent’s epic AI opportunity is already disrupting digital advancement in diverse sectors, from finance and agriculture, to healthcare and mobility — all fuelling a booming AI market.

Available data from Statista says the continent’s AI market will grow 30 percent annually over the next six years to value $17 billion.

This surge clearly takes the continent into the global AI innovation race. According to AI Everything Expo by GITEX AFRICA, 2024 centres world’s attention on Africa’s booming AI phenomenon.

The AI mania is also igniting waves of innovation across Africa with the shape-shifting tech’s existential prospects powering a cross-continental investment surge at the AI Everything Expo by GITEX AFRICA holding in Morocco later this month.

Africa’s impressive AI chance is already fuelling a booming AI market — disrupting digital advancements in diverse sectors from finance and agriculture, to healthcare and mobility. 

Clinify, a Nigerian start-up epitomises this movement in the healthcare sector, and is one of hundreds of global change-makers at GITEX AFRICA’s North Star Africa start-up showcase. Clinify, an electronic medical record (EMR) platform seeks to digitise patients’ medical records in Africa, where 90 percent of such information is still paper based.

Founded in 2020, by Michael Omidele, the AI-powered model will increase access to healthcare across Africa, where, according to him, there is an urgent need for centralised and digitised medical records.

“Africa’s healthcare sector faces several challenges; there’s only one doctor available for every 10,000 patients whereas the average in developed countries is one doctor for every 250 people,” Omidele said.

He said Clinify is a one of a kind African solution offering a digitally centralised and standardised interoperable aggregator of healthcare systems, a telemedicine platform, and an EMR solution giving patients access to their medical records. The goal is to network with healthcare providers, to expand this innovation from Nigeria and export it across Africa.

Tech analysts say the massive AI rush in Africa, combined with a rapidly growing population of 1.5 billion people — of which 70 percent are under the age of 30 — creates a potent recipe of AI acceleration, but highlights gaps in talent development, venture allocation, policy and infrastructure.

At the AI Everything Expo by GITEX AFRICA, the year’s largest and most progressive platform for AI exploration and deep tech innovation, these crucial challenges and opportunities will be addressed when the world’s AI cognoscenti and pivotal power players of its widespread deployment unite to fast-track the continent’s next big tech shift.

The event takes place from 29—31 May, in Marrakech, Morocco. The Africa powerhouse tech showcase will feature the world’s tech titans spearheading the AI gold rush, including Microsoft, IBM, Huawei, Nvidia, and Google, along with hundreds of AI ambitious start-ups from across the globe with grand visions to change Africa via AI-infused products and services. 

An AI continent ‘brimming with investment opportunity’

Microsoft, the world’s most valuable company, and GITEX AFRICA’s official AI Partner, is leading the way in the AI investment race, having forged partnerships with the world’s hottest makers of AI models, including the UAE’s G42, a global leader in visionary AI.

Microsoft’s recent $1.5 billion strategic investment in G42 to accelerate AI development in growing economies such as Africa will be welcomed by big tech executives, government leaders, investors and tech entrepreneurs alike at GITEX AFRICA 2024, which will also feature Presight, G42’s big data analytics company powered by generative AI.

Lillian Barnard, president of Microsoft Africa, said AI can unlock a continent “brimming with investment opportunity. Africa has long been recognised for its formidable growth prospects, and AI is the long-awaited key to help unlock that potential”.

Barnard will also be a headline speaker at the GITEX AFRICA’s power-packed conference programme.

 “The AI-powered innovation we’re seeing today is poised to reinvent every aspect of society from healthcare to financial services, manufacturing and beyond. If Africa is to benefit from the paradigm shift currently sweeping the globe, we must make the promise of AI real for people and organisations across the continent – and do so responsibly. GITEX provides us with a platform to come together and work towards fulfilling that commitment,” Barnard said further.

Adel Alsharji, the COO of Presight, said Africa is the second-fastest growing region globally in AI adoption.

“Africa’s AI journey is gaining momentum, and this progress highlights the continent’s readiness to explore and harness the potential of AI for driving economic growth and addressing local challenges,” Alsharji said, adding that demand for AI-related jobs will increase two-fold over the next three years. “AI could add $13 trillion to the global economy by 2030, while the number of AI-related jobs in Africa alone is expected to grow by 200 percent by 2025.”

A formidable African force in a world-changing AI revolution

The AI Everything Expo will gather the brightest minds and most innovative thinkers in the field of AI such as Dragoș Tudorache, vice-president of the Renew Europe Group; Mactar Seck, chief of technology and innovation at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA); and Jepson Taylor, former chief AI strategist, Dataiku who are leading the AI phenomenon as headline speakers.

AI and its far-reaching multisectoral impact will be evident on the exhibition floor, with exhibitors showcasing how the AI boom is turbocharging waves of innovation across industries, from education and agriculture, to transport, retail, energy, or logistics.