Nigeria Emerging One Of Africa’s Leading AI Hubs – World Bank

Nigeria is emerging as one of Africa’s leading artificial intelligence (AI) hubs, with 44 per cent of firms in Nigeria and Kenya already deploying AI, even as the World Bank warned that weak electricity, connectivity and digital infrastructure could prevent the continent from fully harnessing the technology.

The World Bank, in its October 2026 Africa Economic Update titled “Building AI Readiness,” said AI activity in Sub-Saharan Africa is heavily concentrated in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, with the three countries accounting for much of the continent’s AI innovation, venture capital investment, research output and advanced applications.

It said AI adoption among firms with at least 20 employees in Nigeria and Kenya compares favourably with more advanced economies, although the sophistication of deployment remains significantly lower.

According to the report, 61 per cent of surveyed United States firms use AI technologies, compared with an average of 44 per cent among firms in Nigeria and Kenya.

However, the World Bank said African firms are yet to fully integrate AI into their operations, with only 36 per cent of AI-using firms in the surveyed developing countries deploying AI agents or using AI for automation, compared with 56 per cent in the United States.

The report said the gap was even more pronounced among smaller businesses, where limited innovation and weak digital integration continue to constrain AI readiness.

“Only 13 per cent of these enterprises have introduced process innovations in the last three years, and just 35 per cent have established a basic web presence,” the World Bank stated.

Nigeria’s position in the continent’s AI ecosystem is also reflected in its growing research output. The World Bank identified Nigeria and South Africa as Africa’s leading centres of AI research.

Between 2000 and 2024, Nigeria produced 4,428 AI publications and recorded 64,925 citations, compared with South Africa’s 7,647 publications and 142,024 citations.

The World Bank said, “Research output, a proxy for frontier AI capability, is heavily concentrated in only Nigeria and South Africa.”

It also identified Nigeria as one of the countries where AI infrastructure is becoming increasingly concentrated, noting that nearly half of Africa’s approximately 160 data centre facilities are located in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.

Despite the growing concentration of AI activity, the World Bank warned that inadequate infrastructure could undermine the economic gains available to Nigeria and other African economies.

“Africa’s data centres and cloud infrastructure are critically underdeveloped,” it said, noting that only five per cent of African data centres are currently AI-ready.

The institution added that “weak electricity systems with low reserve margins and frequent outages” are constraining the expansion of AI data-centre infrastructure.

Beyond infrastructure, the World Bank identified electricity, connectivity, skills, data, computing infrastructure, institutions and governance as critical factors that will determine whether countries such as Nigeria can turn rising AI adoption into sustained economic growth.

It said most African countries remain in the “adopt” and “adapt” stages of AI development, relying mainly on existing AI tools and locally tailored applications rather than developing frontier AI models.

According to the report, AI use in the region currently focuses largely on learning, office and administrative tasks, software development and personal assistance.

Although access to generative AI tools has expanded rapidly, the World Bank said their integration into business operations, public services and frontline service delivery remains limited.

The institution also highlighted Nigeria’s growing adoption of AI within the public sector, noting that the country has introduced Service Wise GPT as an official AI assistant for federal civil servants.

The platform provides civil servants with access to information on public service rules and procedures.

However, the World Bank said African governments remain early-stage users of AI, with government applications concentrated largely on internal functions rather than services delivered directly to citizens.

“90.8 percent of AI systems identified through procurement records supported internal functions,” it stated, adding that 88.9 per cent relied on predictive or optimisation models, while only 1.4 per cent employed generative AI.

The World Bank said AI could nevertheless become a major source of economic resilience and growth for Africa as global investment in AI and digital infrastructure drives demand for technology-related inputs and commodities produced by African economies.

It projected that under a highly ambitious full-activation scenario, AI could add as much as $1 trillion to Africa’s GDP by 2035, create between 35 million and 40 million digital jobs and generate almost $150 billion in annual tax revenue.

However, the bank warned that the economic payoff would be significantly smaller if countries fail to address their readiness gaps.

At current levels of preparedness, AI integration in Sub-Saharan Africa could add only between 0.2 and four per cent to cumulative GDP over the next decade.

“The challenge for the region is therefore not simply to adopt AI, but to create the conditions under which AI can translate into broad-based and inclusive development outcomes,” the World Bank said.

The report further cautioned that AI is more likely to complement workers than replace them in the near term across the region, with productivity gains from AI expected to outweigh the effects of large-scale automation.

For Nigeria, the World Bank’s assessment places the country at the centre of Africa’s emerging AI economy, but also highlights the scale of investment required in power, digital infrastructure, skills and governance if growing adoption is to translate into jobs, productivity and broader economic gains.