Abstract
This paper argues that the global race to build artificial intelligence is reproducing colonial patterns of extraction, labor exploitation, and technological dependency, and that Africa sits at the center of this structure. The resources that make modern AI possible, including massive datasets, low-cost human labor, rare minerals, and digital infrastructure, are drawn disproportionately from the African continent, while the companies that design, own, and profit from these systems remain concentrated in the United States and a handful of other wealthy nations. Drawing on the concept of technocolonialism, the paper traces this dynamic across data extraction, infrastructure control, labor exploitation, and technological dependency, showing that these patterns are not incidental to how AI is developed but structural features of how the industry is organized. It concludes that addressing the problem will require more than regulatory reform and points toward algorithmic sovereignty as a direction for thinking about what African participation in AI development could look like on different terms.