Why Africa needs its own AI off switch
Rest of World/iStock
Imagine that it is 6 a.m. in the wholesale markets of Nairobi. Merchants are delivering vegetables from up-country farms to the retailers who sell to the city’s households. Everyone is using M-Pesa, Safaricom’s mobile money platform, when suddenly, the system crashes, bringing the market to a standstill. Imagine that across the continent in Accra, MTN’s MoMo has also crashed, and business in Makola Market has all but stopped.
With the growing number of cyberattacks caused by AI, these are highly plausible scenarios. In both these cases, Safaricom, MTN, and the Kenyan and Ghanaian governments need an off switch, or the technical ability and know-how to stop a rogue AI agent from executing its code on their payment systems.
Currently, the conversation on AI agents revolves around China versus the U.S., open versus closed models, and who will dominate the AI race. But in Africa’s capitals, the distinction that will ultimately matter is not whose product was used to build a system, or who dominates whom, but rather whether AI can serve its purpose and be controlled locally. So how can Africa build with agency, and with control over the code and makeup of its own systems, even though they are built on foreign technology?
Dispatches from the ground 🌏︎
This week, India’s Jio surges in a blockbuster debut, Anthropic reports a commanding revenue lead over Chinese rivals, and U.S. lawmakers question Meta over alleged election interference in Brazil.
South Asia
India’s largest telco, backed by India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, made a blockbuster debut on October 28. Jio Platforms’ shares surged 21% on the first day of trading. It has become the second most valuable Indian company by market cap. Jio’s IPO not only highlights the growth potential of India’s digital economy but also how American tech companies' investments fare globally. Meta owns about 9.9% of Jio Platforms, while Alphabet owns roughly 7.7%. All eyes are on Jio as it becomes a more prominent player across AI and cloud computing.
— Ananya Bhattacharya from Mumbai
China
Anthropic’s long-awaited IPO filing this week revealed that despite the close rivalry between American and Chinese AI labs, the Claude developer is still way ahead of its Chinese rivals in terms of financial results. The Anthropic documents said the company has gained $16.3 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026 — 63 times the combined sales of Chinese rivals Z.AI and MiniMax.
While Chinese AI labs have narrowed the technological gap with their American rivals and made powerful models available at much lower prices, turning those advances into revenue remains a challenge. Anthropic also identified the rise of open-weight AI models — including those developed by Chinese companies such as DeepSeek — China-U.S. tensions, and chip supply-chain risks as potential threats to the company’s prospects.
— Kinling Lo from Taipei
United States
U.S. lawmakers have asked Meta to respond to allegations that it actively interfered in Brazil’s election to favor right-wing senator Flávio Bolsonaro, who lost to incumbent President Lula da Silva. U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal and Senator Bernie Sanders said there were “credible reports” of Meta restricting or suppressing content associated with Lula’s campaign while amplifying or recommending content related to Bolsonaro’s campaign. United Nations experts also said the social media company had “disproportionately curtailed” accounts linked to one side of Brazil’s presidential race. Meta called the allegations “false and unfounded,” saying there had been “technical incidents” that affected campaigns from “different parts of the political spectrum.” Social media platforms and AI chatbots have come under greater scrutiny ahead of U.S. midterm elections, with OpenAI saying it has set up an election “war room” to identify the potential spread of misinformation or other efforts to disrupt the elections.
— Rina Chandran from San Francisco
Chart of the day 📊
Some languages require far more tokens for AI models to process, raising costs and reducing context for the people who use them.
And one more thing...
OpenAI is facing a wrongful-death lawsuit after ChatGPT directed a 31-year-old woman with epilepsy to taper off her medication and conceal the plan from her neurologist, leading to her death, The New York Times reported. It’s a tragic extreme of a dynamic our reporting examined, where patients dealing with debilitating conditions form intense emotional bonds with chatbots, trusting an algorithm’s agreeable bedside manner over the clinical judgment of human doctors.
Thanks for reading! Send us your feedback at [email protected]. If you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it to a friend — Edited by Tolu Olasoji
Like our journalism? Consider donating.
Powered by beehiiv