Uganda Pursues AI Despite Infrastructure Gaps

Uganda is positioning itself as a potential East African hub for applied AI innovation, though significant challenges remain. The country aims to leverage its geography bordering five nations to become a regional technology and data transit point. Participants at the recent DeepTech Summit acknowledged Uganda’s potential, but also its underdeveloped infrastructure—including power, fiber optics, and data centers—needed to support AI.

Experts noted that policy implementation often lags behind rapid AI development, and that current systems struggle with interoperability. For example, banks still reject some updated national IDs due to integration issues with older systems, and fees for data verification hinder digital growth.

Despite these obstacles, attendees expressed optimism, emphasizing the need for localized digital ecosystems, Afrocentric AI models, and investment in local talent to avoid “data colonisation.” Uganda must increase GPU capacity roughly twelvefold in the next year to meet growing demand, a costly undertaking requiring policy changes and incentives. The work to build a viable AI ecosystem continues.