Key points:
- Africa holds 30% of global critical mineral reserves vital for AI hardware but earns just 10% of revenue
- The AfCFTA can empower African nations to secure fair trade deals and invest in local mineral processing
- Development finance can support infrastructure, driving Africa’s role in the AI supply chain
WHEN di
scussing advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) models, whether they are niche analytical tools or Large Language Models (LLM) such as ChatGPT or Gemini, the focus often falls on the software, programming and data used to push them forward. However, a critical component is often overlooked: the critical minerals essential for building the hardware that powers AI. These minerals don’t originate in Silicon Valley tech companies; they are extracted from holes dug in the earth, often by vulnerable workers in challenging conditions.
A prime example is the Kolwezi copper and cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where Amnesty International has documented significant forced evictions to make room for mineral extraction and reports on labour exploitation. This highlights a stark reality: while Africa holds 30% of the world’s critical mineral reserves, essential for electronics and AI hardware, it captures only 10% of the global revenue generated from these resources. There is a fundamental disparity at play but the time to redress, in favour of African countries, is now.
Whilst the USA imposes new, potentially ineffective, export restrictions on ICT products to China – aimed at curbing their capacity to develop and deploy homegrown AI tools – a key battleground in the AI landscape remains largely ignored by Western nations. Africa is home to some of the largest mineral deposits needed to build the hardware that runs AI models. Without these minerals, the growing demand for the hardware required to run and evolve AI models will remain unmet.
At this critical juncture, where AI is increasingly gaining traction, African nations must leverage one of their most important resources – access to these critical resources. The continent is rich in minerals like cobalt, lithium and graphite – all essential for AI development. The DRC possesses the world’s largest cobalt reserves, making it a key player in the global supply chain source. Zimbabwe boasts significant lithium deposits, crucial for lithium-ion batteries. Additionally, several countries, notably Madagascar and Mozambique, have substantial graphite deposits.
Furthermore, the continent holds considerable quantities of rare-earth elements (REEs) and Platinum Group Metals (PGMs). South Africa is a key source for both, has reserves of both, while Zimbabwe also has PMG deposits. Tanzania and Madagascar are known to possess REEs, vital for producing the hardware components for various high-tech applications, including AI. Guinea’s bauxite reserves further underscore Africa’s diverse mineral wealth.
Several opportunities exist for African nations to leverage their resources, improve working conditions in mines and secure a greater share of the AI boom.
Historically, mineral-exporting African countries have previously been exploited by both Western and Eastern nations, who have been able to negotiate significantly more advantageous terms to access the mineral resources. The ‘fortuitous’ timing of export restrictions on key minerals by China, such as gallium, germanium and antimony, presents an opportunity for African countries to replace Chinese dominance of critical AI minerals. Africa offers a solution to this apparent resource scarcity.
With the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the potential for collective trade agreements would provide much-needed leverage for African countries.
The AFCFTA, unlike the European Union, is not a customs union which means that there is no process to allow it to negotiate trade terms outside of the free trade area. Currently, it is the responsibility of individual governments to carry out these negotiations, which leaves them weakened to exploitative terms of trade. However, it would be to the benefit of African countries if special consideration were to be given for the AFCFTA to start negotiating external trade agreements in key sectors, such as critical minerals, to be represented at the continental level.
Whilst this function may come later as the AfCFTA hopefully matures into a customs union, providing it with special dispensation could also act as a pilot scheme upon which the AfCFTA’s capacity to negotiate at the continental level could be further built.
The second opportunity is that African nations are no longer content with simply exporting primary products with no transformative gains in their economies. Therefore, access to mineral resources should be negotiated with a concurrent investment in processing and refining those resources within the continent. Whilst it would be incredibly naïve to believe that complex industries such as the manufacturing of computing equipment could be set up overnight in the continent, the initial stages of the processes where minerals are refined into the constituent components of ICT hardware, such as semiconductors, should be more than feasible. In the longer term, there is no reason that African countries could not play a significant role throughout the microchip supply chain.
Development Finance Institutions (DFI’s) like the British International Investment (BII), the German Deutsche Investitions (DEG), the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank, FMO, and other bilateral institutions and multilateral institutions such as the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) have critical roles to play in supporting these investments. They can provide the necessary financing to mitigate risks and encourage Western technology companies to establish manufacturing operations across the continent.
Multilateral development banks like The World Bank and the AfDB also have a role to play, ensuring investment in much-needed public infrastructure, such as energy and l
ogistics, which will be crucial to enable the effective operation of more complex manufacturing supply chains.
African countries are currently working to fully implement the AfCFTA’s Digital Trade Protocol (DTP), which aims to create a single market for e-commerce and digital services across the continent. This opens the door to investments in both ICT hardware and digital supply chains. Successful implementation could significantly boost intra-African trade by over 50% and GDP, while also fostering the development of AI models tailored to the diverse social and economic contexts that are present across the continent. This burgeoning market of potentially 1.6 billion consumers will drive demand for AI services, hardware and skilled digital professionals.
Empowering the AFCFTA is crucial for African countries to secure a more equitable share of the global economic gains derived from the critical minerals it produces. This will fuel economic growth, enhance economic independence and strengthen Africa’s global soft power.
Alberto Lemma is a Research Fellow at ODI Global, a leading global affairs think tank. For further information, visit odi.org.
