Chinese technology companies are steadily expanding their influence in Africa’s artificial intelligence sector, with experts citing their growing support for open-source AI models as a major factor in widening access to advanced digital tools across the continent.
According to an article published in China Daily, Chinese technology firms are becoming increasingly influential in Africa’s artificial intelligence landscape.
Wu Chenglin, founder and chief executive of DeepWisdom in Xiamen, Fujian province, said open-source AI is helping reduce the barriers to adopting advanced technologies while widening access to sophisticated digital tools in emerging markets such as Africa.
He explained that these models enable developers and businesses to download model weights, deploy systems on local infrastructure, adjust model architectures and retrain them using their own datasets. This flexibility, he said, makes AI significantly more accessible than conventional closed-source alternatives.
Wu noted that Chinese technology companies have increasingly embraced open-source strategies in recent years to accelerate innovation and foster international collaboration.
Major firms including Alibaba, Baidu and ByteDance have released or supported open-source large language models, drawing developers from around the world.
According to Wu, the open-source approach significantly lowers the cost of developing AI solutions while removing many of the obstacles associated with building them. This has created opportunities for entrepreneurs, small businesses and independent developers to experiment with AI technologies, with some innovators in Africa already applying Chinese open-source models to address local challenges.
In Kenya, one company has used DeepWisdom’s Atoms model to create Yotu Health, a mobile AI copilot that assists users in monitoring blood sugar levels, managing medication schedules and supporting their day-to-day healthcare needs.
Harun Katusya, a Kenyan data scientist, said United States companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic, together with Chinese developers behind models like DeepSeek, are engaged in a wider race to shape the future of artificial intelligence.
“Africa sits at the centre of this emerging contest because it is a massive untapped digital market, and many institutions are rapidly digitising without strong AI governance frameworks,” he said.
Lawrence Nderu, a research fellow in the Department of Computing at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), said one of the greatest strengths of Chinese open-weight AI models compared with many closed systems is the level of control they provide.
“With open-weight models, African teams can host systems locally, reduce dependency, protect sensitive data, fine-tune domain-specific datasets, and build solutions that reflect African priorities rather than simply consuming AI products designed for other markets.”
Nderu said this level of control is especially important in sectors such as healthcare, education, finance, agriculture and public administration, where trust, regulatory compliance and long-term sustainability are essential.
“We are now talking about AI sovereignty, which is part of our AI strategy in Kenya.”
He said African countries should leverage open-weight models as the foundation for developing their own artificial intelligence capabilities.
“We should use these models as scaffolding to train our researchers, build our datasets, develop African language benchmarks, create domain-specific models, and ultimately produce AI systems that are owned, governed and sustained by African institutions.”
Nderu added that the greatest opportunity is not simply adopting Chinese AI technologies but using them as a springboard for creating AI solutions that are built in Africa, governed by African institutions and designed to address African priorities.
He, however, cautioned that governments and institutions must carefully evaluate open-source technologies to minimise potential risks, particularly those relating to data protection.
According to the African Development Bank Group, if developed and deployed in an inclusive manner, artificial intelligence could contribute as much as $1 trillion to the combined GDP of African economies by 2035, representing nearly one-third of the continent’s current economic output.
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