Decolonizing AI Scaling to Foster Afrocentric Innovation: Navigating Hype, Technocoloniality, and Regulation

This presentation was delivered as part of the 2026 conference of the Cana…. I participated in an OpenAIRpanel entitled“Artificial Intelligence an…which focused on issues related to AI governance, regulation, intellectual property, and innovation in Africa. Below is a summary of my presentation.

Abstract

Decolonizing AI Scaling to Foster Afrocentric Innovation: Navigating Hype, Technocoloniality, and Regulation

The global expansion of artificial intelligence has largely been shaped by diffusionist models (Rogers, 2003) of technological scaling that echo the core–periphery dynamics described in Immanuel Wallerstein’s World-Systems Theory (Wallerstein, 2004). While global discourse in media and organizations presents AI as a transformative technology with far-reaching impacts on health, agriculture, economies, and society more broadly, the risks of techno-coloniality remain obscured (CEIMIA, 2024, 2024, 2025; Graham, 2018). These dynamics marginalize local knowledge systems and constrain the emergence of context-responsive AI ecosystems in Africa (Mboa Nkoudou, 2023).

This paper argues that Afrocentric AI innovation requires not only access to technology but a fundamental rethinking of how AI is scaled. Recent initiatives — including responsible scaling efforts, science diplomacy, global AI governance frameworks, and the mentorship of local talent — aim to support more context-responsive AI development on the continent (CEIMIA et al., 2024). However, despite the proliferation of such initiatives, the rapid formulation of national and regional AI strategies and the frequent celebration of African startup success stories, Africa’s role within the global AI ecosystem remains structurally marginal. This situation is often explained by structural local barriers, the geopolitical dynamics of colonialism, the scarcity of local talent, and the perception of regulation as a barrier to innovation. Yet this now-familiar discourse risks becoming analytically limiting.

Drawing on a case study of AI startups in francophone Sub-Saharan Africa (Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal), the paper advances the concept of decolonized AI scaling as an alternative framework for thinking about scaling beyond AI hype and the logics of technocoloniality, reframing scaling from the standpoint of the periphery rather than the centre (Friederici et al., 2020; Mboa Nkoudou, 2021). In doing so, it contributes to emerging debates in Responsible AI, global technology governance, and decolonial science and technology studies, positioning Afrocentric innovation not as peripheral adaptation but as a site of epistemic and institutional transformation.