By Dr Blessing Vava
A university student in Lusaka, Zambia begins the day with a Huawei smartphone, submits an assignment through Microsoft OneDrive, searches Google Scholar, pays for lunch using mobile money and later asks ChatGPT to summarise a research paper. In Mbare, Zimbabwe, a young entrepreneur advertises products on Facebook, sources goods from Chinese online marketplaces, receives payments through EcoCash and relies on Starlink to stay connected. In Gokwe, a farmer checks satellite weather forecasts before deciding when to plant.
None of these actions appears geopolitical. Yet together they reveal one of the defining realities of the twenty-first century: Africans increasingly live, work and transact through digital systems designed, financed and governed beyond the continent's borders.
This is the new scramble for Africa—less visible than its nineteenth-century predecessor, but no less consequential.
Unlike the nineteenth-century scramble, the contest is no longer centred on territorial conquest. It is increasingly about control over data, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, satellite connectivity, digital infrastructure, critical minerals and the standards that govern them. In the digital age, control over these systems is becoming as strategically significant as control over land, railways and ports once was.
Over the past five editions of The Thursday Briefing, I have argued that this transformation cannot be understood through conventional geopolitics alone. Through the framework of geosociotechnopolitics, I have explored how technology is reshaping power, sovereignty and governance across Africa. This week's briefing extends that argument by asking a broader question: What does the new scramble for Africa look like, and how should the continent respond?
From Territory to Technological Systems
The first Scramble for Africa, formalised at the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, was driven by the pursuit of territory, minerals and trade routes. Railways, ports and telegraph lines were built primarily to facilitate extraction and imperial administration.
Today's contest follows an entirely different logic—one in which technological systems have become the new infrastructure of power.
No foreign power is redrawing Africa’s borders. Instead, governments and technology companies are competing to build and shape the digital systems that increasingly underpin economies, governance and everyday life. Fibre-optic cables, cloud infrastructure, satellite internet, artificial intelligence, payment systems, digital identity platforms and data centres have become the strategic infrastructure of the digital age.
Viewed individually, these investments appear to be ordinary commercial initiatives. Taken together, however, they reveal a profound shift in the geography of power. Influence no longer rests solely on controlling territory. It increasingly depends on who controls data, algorithms, cloud infrastructure, digital platforms and the standards that govern them.
The shift is already visible across Africa. In Zimbabwe, debates that once centred on mobile coverage and internet access now focus on cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, digital payments, biometric identity and data governance. Zambia, Kenya and South Africa are following similar trajectories as governments and global technology firms reshape the continent's digital landscape.
These developments illustrate why geosociotechnopolitics departs from classical geopolitics. Traditional geopolitics asks who controls territory. Geosociotechnopolitics asks who controls the technological systems through which societies communicate, transact, govern, innovate and increasingly think. In the digital century, these questions are becoming just as consequential as the ownership of territory or strategic minerals.
Why Africa Matters
Africa’s strategic importance is often explained by its market potential. With the world’s youngest population, rapid urbanisation and expanding internet access, the continent represents one of the largest future markets for digital services.
Yet Africa is far more than a market. It is becoming indispensable to the global digital economy because artificial intelligence depends on high-performance computing, reliable energy, sophisticated data centres and the critical minerals used to manufacture semiconductors and advanced technologies.
The Democratic Republic of Congo supplies much of the world’s cobalt. Zambia’s copper is essential to electrical systems and telecommunications. Zimbabwe has emerged as a major lithium producer, while Mozambique and Madagascar contribute significant graphite reserves. These resources are no longer merely commodities; they are strategic assets in the global AI economy.
At the same time, the competition extends well beyond minerals. Chinese firms continue expanding telecommunications infrastructure through the Digital Silk Road. American companies are investing in AI, cloud computing and digital services. Europe is shaping global digital regulation and standards. Gulf states are financing AI infrastructure, while India is exporting digital public infrastructure. Africa has become one of the principal arenas where these competing technological ecosystems converge.
This reality is experienced every day. A student may use a Chinese smartphone, Google’s search engine, Microsoft’s cloud, Meta’s social platforms and locally developed mobile money—all within a single day. These routine interactions place millions of Africans within overlapping digital ecosystems governed by different companies, jurisdictions and geopolitical interests.
The new scramble is not simply about who sells Africa technology. It is about who designs, owns and governs the technological architecture through which Africa's future will be organised.
Beyond Competition: Building African Digital Power
History’s lesson is not that Africa should fear global competition. It is that the continent must engage it from a position of capability rather than dependence.
Infrastructure alone will not achieve this. Fibre-optic cables, mobile networks and data centres are essential, but they are only the foundations of digital transformation. Africa’s long-term competitiveness will depend on whether it can build the institutions that create technology, produce knowledge and shape innovation.
Governments must treat digital infrastructure, artificial intelligence and cloud computing as strategic national assets. Universities should become centres of AI research, innovation and policy experimentation. The private sector should be supported not only to develop digital applications but also to build platforms, cloud services and advanced technologies that generate value within Africa.
Regional cooperation is equally important. The African Continental Free Trade Area provides a unique opportunity to harmonise digital standards, strengthen cybersecurity, facilitate trusted data governance and create integrated digital markets capable of competing globally.
None of this requires Africa to reject international partnerships. Cooperation with China, the United States, Europe, India and others will remain essential. The challenge is to ensure that these partnerships build African capability, deepen local innovation and strengthen institutional resilience rather than reinforce technological dependence.
This is the central insight of geosociotechnopolitics: technology is never merely about innovation or commerce. It is about power—who exercises it, who benefits from it and who writes the rules that govern it.
Conclusion
The nineteenth-century Scramble for Africa sought to control territory. The twenty-first-century scramble seeks to shape the digital systems through which economies function, governments govern, and societies increasingly think.
History, however, need not repeat itself.
Africa enters this era with immense strategic advantages: a youthful population, expanding digital markets, abundant critical minerals, growing research capacity and a vibrant innovation ecosystem. Whether these become the foundations of prosperity or simply fuel the ambitions of others will depend on the choices African leaders, businesses, universities and citizens make today.
The challenge is not to resist technological change or choose between competing global powers. It is to build the institutional capacity, technological capability and intellectual confidence to engage the world on Africa's own terms.
If previous editions of The Thursday Briefing argued that Africa must rethink sovereignty in the digital age, this article advances the argument further: Africa must also help shape the technological order rather than merely adapt to it.
The digital revolution has already arrived. The question is no longer whether Africa will participate in it, but whether it will remain a theatre of digital competition or emerge as a co-architect of the technomultipolar world. The answer will depend not on the ambitions of Beijing, Washington or Brussels, but on the choices Africans make today.
That is the defining geosociotechnopolitical question of our time. ENDS
Previous editions in this series
About the Author
Dr Blessing Vava is a communication scholar, researcher and governance practitioner. He holds a PhD in Communication Studies from the University of Johannesburg, where his doctoral research developed the concept of geosociotechnopolitics as a framework for understanding the intersection of technology, power and society in an emerging technomultipolar world. He writes The Thursday Briefing, a bi-weekly series exploring digital governance, artificial intelligence, geopolitical change and Africa's place in the evolving global technological order.
