Imad Musa

As Africa races to power its digital future with Chinese solar panels and AI-ready data centres, it risks becoming both the supplier of critical minerals and the dumping ground for toxic waste in a new form of green extractivism, wrapped in the language of digital and climate progress. Editor’s note: This essay is available in our print issue, An African Manual for Debugging Empire. Buy the issue here.

Photo illustration by Dami Mojid / THE REPUBLIC. Photo illustration by Dami Mojid / THE REPUBLIC. As artificial intelligence sweeps across Africa, powering everything from data centres to digital economies, several critical questions loom: how will the continent meet AI’s massive energy demands without repeating old mistakes?

Photo Illustration by Ezinne Osueke / THE REPUBLIC. Source Ref: WIKIMEDIA. Photo Illustration by Ezinne Osueke / THE REPUBLIC. Source Ref: WIKIMEDIA In global trade circles, American president Donald Trump administration’s renewed tariff campaign is being framed not merely as a revival of trade war tactics, reminiscent of the famous Richard Nixon shock of 1971, but as a diplomatic lever to recalibrate the global economic architecture.