Industry leaders, technology executives, and academics converged in Accra this week with a unified message: Ghana and Africa risk exchanging one form of dependence for another unless they move urgently to assert control over their data and artificial intelligence (AI) systems through deliberate national policy.

The warning was sounded repeatedly at the Rethink Africa Intelligence Conference (RAIC) 2026, held on April 10 and 11 at the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), under the theme “Building Africa’s Intelligence Ecosystem for Sovereignty and Prosperity.”

Board Chairperson of Rethink Africa, Ing. Richard Densu, opened proceedings with a stark historical parallel. Drawing on the story of electricity, he cautioned that AI presented Africa with the same choice: develop or consume.

“In history, there have been transformative technologies that changed the world, electricity being a prime example. Some nations developed it, others adopted it later, and many simply became consumers. Today, we stand at a similar turning point with artificial intelligence,” he said. He added that artificial intelligence was not a future prospect but a present force already reshaping industries and global power dynamics. “Artificial intelligence is not approaching; it is already here. The fundamental question before Africa is this: will we shape this intelligence revolution, or will it shape us?”

He invoked Ghana's political history to frame the stakes. “In 1957, Ghana’s independence marked political liberation. Today, we stand at the frontier of a new kind of independence, not territorial but intellectual. Control of intelligence is the new power,” he stated, cautioning that without immediate action, Africa risked buying back its own potential at a premium.

The call for a structured national policy response was taken up across the conference’s panels. Country Manager of PIAX Data Centre, Sadick Abubakari, argued that Africa’s vast and underutilised data reserves required a coordinated governance framework to unlock their value. “We remain an untapped intelligence reservoir. "This must sit within a national strategy,” he said, stressing the importance of local data hosting, the integration of African languages into AI systems, and sustained investment in digital infrastructure. “The right to host our own data is fundamental. Policy and investment must align to drive data sovereignty,” he added.

Josua Opoku Agyemang, President of Rethink Africa Intelligence, warned that large volumes of data generated across Africa are currently processed and controlled outside the continent, limiting countries’ ability to derive economic value and develop homegrown innovations. “The new gold in this century is data. We must build our own intelligence systems that reflect our cultures, languages, and realities,” he said.

Patrick Quantson, Chief Digital Officer of GCB Bank, highlighted the role of financial institutions in building the trust infrastructure that underpins data ecosystems, particularly through data-driven lending models designed to better serve small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The Director-General of the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT (GI-KACE), Dr. Ing. Collins Yeboah-Afari, warned that Africa’s reliance on external data processing systems poses risks to digital sovereignty and called for stronger investments in infrastructure, talent, and ethical frameworks to ensure Africa retains control over its growing data economy. He pointed to Africa’s youthful population as a structural asset. “This generation does not need permission to innovate; they only need platforms, infrastructure, and belief,” he said.

Country Manager of Google Ghana, Perry Nelson, highlighted his company’s contributions to the continent’s digital transformation through AI-driven tools, including weather forecasting, wildfire detection, and geospatial analytics, noting their practical applications in agriculture, education, and healthcare delivery.

A representative of the Egyptian Ambassador to Ghana also addressed the conference, outlining Egypt’s National AI Strategy for 2025 to 2030 and expressing optimism about deepening bilateral cooperation between the two countries in AI development and investment.

The conference, organised in collaboration with Google, the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT, and the IoT Network Hub, called on government, academia, the private sector, and investors to move beyond discussion toward coordinated implementation.