The two-day Nairobi AI Forum 2026, held on February 9–10, has emerged as a pivotal moment for Africa’s artificial intelligence future, unveiling a roadmap that promises millions of jobs, groundbreaking innovation, and stronger technological sovereignty across Africa.
With over 500 participants from Africa, Europe, and the G7, the Forum outlined strategies to scale AI infrastructure and foster inclusive ecosystems, positioning Africa as a rising leader in the global AI economy. A major highlight was the announcement of compute access for 130 African AI innovators.
This initiative will empower many youthful startups to tackle pressing challenges in climate resilience, food security, and the adoption of voice AI in local languages.
The Forum also reinforced the collaborative spirit embodied by the Italy-Africa Mattei Plan, a strategic framework aimed at inclusive growth and innovation. Italy’s Minister of University and Research, Senator Anna Maria Bernini, emphasized education’s central role by stating:
“Strengthening skills, training and research is the strategic choice to support innovation, technological sovereignty and inclusive progress in Africa. The Nairobi AI Forum highlights how joint efforts in higher education and knowledge exchange can build global, sustainable Artificial Intelligence that leaves no one behind.”
Amb. Philip Thigo, Kenya’s Special Envoy on Technology, highlighted the significance of this shift: “Kenya and Italy, working with UNDP, are entering a defining phase of partnership; evolving beyond traditional aid towards the co-creation of future economic capability,” before adding that.
“The Intelligence Economy will be defined by compute infrastructure, sovereign talent, shared innovation, and the ability to translate research into industrial production.”
Moreover, the Nairobi AI Forum 2026 announced the launch of the ambitious AI 10 Billion Initiative in partnership with the African Development Bank and private sector players.
This bold program aims to mobilize up to US$10 billion to foster AI entrepreneurship and build foundational AI infrastructure continent-wide, with the goal of creating up to 45 million jobs by 2035.
Moreover, a new space-enabled AI partnership was introduced to improve food security through geospatial data-driven crop mapping, yield forecasting, and climate risk alerts, involving key players such as Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture, the Kenyan Space Agency, Italian Space Agency, NASA Harvest, and Microsoft.
Cybersecurity also took center stage with the launch of the Cybersecurity Readiness Initiative, led by Cyber 4.0 and the AI Hub in partnership with Cisco Nairobi. This program is designed to embed secure-by-design principles in AI development and to build a strong talent pipeline safeguarding Africa’s digital future.
As Ambassador Vincenzo Del Monaco of Italy aptly summarized, “The Nairobi AI Forum has laid critical groundwork, distributing 1.5 million GPU hours, launching flagship initiatives, and setting a clear delivery runway ahead of the Italy–Africa Summit. This is more than dialogue; it is about concrete delivery and shared growth.”