DSFSI at the Global AI Summit on Africa 2025

DSFSI at the University of Pretoria was proud to participate in the Global AI Summit on Africa 2025 (GAISAfrica2025), held in Kigali, Rwanda (hosted by the Rwanda Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution). The summit brought together researchers, policymakers, funders, and innovators to chart the future of AI across the continent—with a focus on sovereignty, inclusion, and shared infrastructure.

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Over five meaningful days (1-5 April 2025), we contributed to key discussions, strengthened collaborations, and helped highlight the importance of African languages, values, and voices in AI development. Here’s a recap of our activities and how you can engage with our work moving forward.

We started the summit at the Equal Compute Network Workshop, where Prof. Vukosi Marivate joined discussions on the urgent need for equitable access to computing infrastructure across Africa.

Our contributions focused on ensuring that Africa doesn’t just receive hardware (like GPUs) but builds ecosystems that include training, usage support, and long-term sustainability. The need for both powerful infrastructure and efficient, low-resource AI systems was a consistent theme.

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At the Symposium on Language AI in Africa, DSFSI presented our work on evaluating NLP tools for African languages and co-developing accessible, collaborative language tech resources. We also engaged with partners on our ongoing Data.org African NLP Playbooks project, designed to support grassroots developers.

At the Gates Foundation AI Community of Practice, DSFSI joined two interactive Fishbowl sessions, sharing lessons on building tools that prioritise local languages and real-world needs.

Later in the day, Prof. Marivate moderated the closing panel at the Qhala AI Research Symposium, leading a rich discussion on African futures, imagination, and contextually grounded AI.

The evening concluded with a dinner for World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders (WEF YGL).

We participated in bilateral meetings as part of the official South African delegation, led by Deputy Minister of DCDT Mondli Gungubele, focused on cross-border research alignment, infrastructure planning, and AI capacity development.

That same day, Dr. Kayode Olaleye represented the Africa Next Voices project at a gathering of labs working on Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) across Africa. The discussions explored opportunities for collaboration, shared datasets, and coordinated modelling strategies to support speech technology in African languages.

Prof. Marivate also recorded a special podcast episode with Zain Verjee for The Rundown – Embedded. Titled “Language AI as Critical Infrastructure for Africa’s Digital Sovereignty”, the episode dives into how our work at DSFSI pushing for ethical, inclusive AI that serves African people and languages.

You can listen to the 27-minute episode here:
Listen to the podcast

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We began Day 4 with a stakeholder breakfast co-hosted by Partnership on AI and Deep Learning Indaba, focused on strengthening local AI R&D and ensuring African voices shape the development agenda. We were honoured to host Amandeep Singh Gill (Under-Secretary-General and Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Digital and Emerging Technologies) at the breakfast.

Later, Prof. Marivate gave a spotlight talk and joined a panel discussion on “GenAI Opportunities and Challenges in Africa.” The session explored how generative AI might amplify or undermine African development goals if not approached with intentional design and equity in mind.

We also launched the 2024 Deep Learning Indaba Impact Report, showcasing the continued growth and influence of African AI research communities.

🎥 Watch the GenAI panel recording:

Explore all summit recordings at the GAISAfrica2025 official website

The day also included the landmark announcement of the The Africa Declaration on Artificial Intelligence, including a $60 billion AI Fund for Africa, offering a long-term boost for capacity-building, infrastructure, and continental collaboration. Read the full declaration here.

To close out the summit, Dr. Abiodun Modupe represented DSFSI at the AI4D Labs meeting, joining fellow labs from across the continent to discuss ethical data practices, gender-equitable project design, infrastructure mapping, and opportunities for research exchange.

This strategic convening laid important groundwork for DSFSI to align with other labs on shared evaluation frameworks, ethical review protocols, and resource pooling to ensure that smaller labs also benefit from continental investments like the AI Africa Fund.

We left Kigali energised and ready to continue building toward an African AI future that is inclusive, ethical, and driven by local knowledge. At DSFSI, our core focus areas include:

• African NLP

• Language technologies for social impact

• Data Science for Society

• Ethical, public-interest AI

• Policy-research integration

• Research capacity building across the continent

To partner with us or learn more about our projects:
📧 Email: **dsfsi.info@up.ac.za
**🌍 Website: dsfsi.github.io🔗 Follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter/X
🕸️ Find us on many other platforms https://linktr.ee/dsfsi

🎧 Podcast – Language AI as Critical Infrastructure: Listen here
📖 2024 Deep Learning Indaba Impact Report: https://bit.ly/DLI-2024-Impact-Report
🖥️ All GAISAfrica2025 session recordings: https://c4ir.rw/global-ai-summit-on-africa
📩 Share this newsletter with your network

Thank you to everyone who made GAISAfrica2025 a success. We look forward to continuing the work—through shared infrastructure, ethical innovation, and deeper collaboration.