From Digital Consumption to Sovereign Compute: A Socio-Technical Framework for Generative AI in African Education

This paper explores the critical imperatives for integrating Generative AI (GenAI) into African education to prepare its workforce for the evolving global digital economy. It moves beyond adoption metrics to assess the structural alignment between technical infrastructures and social subsystems. Employing a qualitative multiple case study design, the research utilizes Socio-technical Systems (STS) directed documentary analysis of purposively selected initiatives—including AIMS/NEF, NgREN, and localized platforms like Digemy and AltSchool—to diagnose the ’compute divide’ and data sovereignty risks inherent in current models. The findings surface concrete misalignments in sovereign compute capacity, teacher autonomy, and policy governance. Finally, the paper proposes a phased policy roadmap to transition African education from ’API dependency’ to ’jointly optimized’ ecosystems, offering actionable pathways for policymakers to bridge the digital divide and foster leadership in the global AI discourse.