Africa Fintech Summit, in partnership with OpenAI and ALX Ethiopia, will convene policymakers, technology builders, investors and infrastructure leaders in Addis Ababa on Feb. 17 for the Addis AI Leadership Forum, held during African Union Summit week.
The forum, titled The Addis AI Forum: Talent, Infrastructure, and Opportunity in Africa, will examine Africa’s position across the artificial intelligence value chain, from global responsibility and human capital development to ecosystem readiness, infrastructure and policy frameworks.
The programme will be anchored by a keynote address and fireside chat with Emmanuel Lubanzadio, Africa lead at OpenAI, and will explore how inclusive AI leadership can translate into practical pathways for talent development, infrastructure investment and regulation across African markets.
Sessions will include a keynote from OpenAI, fireside discussions with Ethiopian AI policymakers and executives from the Ethiopian Artificial Intelligence Institute, and a conversation with ALX Ethiopia and Sand Technologies Rwanda focused on AI talent and workforce development. The agenda also features live demonstrations from AI innovators and a panel on compute, energy, data centers and infrastructure.
Organizers said the infrastructure discussion will examine how Ethiopia’s experience with bitcoin mining powered by renewable energy could inform large-scale AI compute models and emerging “AI farming” economics. The forum will conclude with a networking reception aimed at fostering partnerships and deal-making.
Addis Ababa was selected as the venue because of its role as the seat of the African Union, which will host its 39th Heads of State and Government Summit during the same week. Organizers said the city sits at the intersection of talent, policy and infrastructure that increasingly define AI competitiveness.
Africa Fintech Summit said discussions at a high-level African Union presidential side event in February 2024 underscored the importance of building Africa’s AI future locally. Key priorities identified included multilingual and multicultural talent, policy alignment with the African Continental Free Trade Area Digital Trade Protocol, local data centers, data protection frameworks and education systems that support applied AI.
Since then, global and regional momentum around AI has accelerated. According to industry data cited by organizers, AI startups globally have raised more than $211 billion, an 85% year-on-year increase. In Africa, recent developments include Google’s launch of an AI hub in Ghana, Cassava Technologies’ partnerships with Nvidia and Google, OpenAI’s AI Academy in Nigeria, and new national AI hubs and institutes in Rwanda and Ethiopia.
From a policy perspective, organizers pointed to the launch of the Continental Internet Exchange and the AfCFTA Digital Trade Protocol as steps toward reducing latency, lowering deployment costs and enabling cross-border data flows within Africa.
The forum’s organizers said Africa’s AI future should be built locally, powered regionally and governed deliberately, with young African talent at the center of innovation and deployment.
The Addis AI Leadership Forum will take place on Feb. 17, 2026, and will be streamed virtually to audiences across Africa and globally. Registration is open for both in-person and online participation.
Read more from Shega Media – OpenAI to Convene AI Leadership Forum in Addis Ababa With ALX and Africa Fintech Summit
Register to join this important convening in person or virtually by registering HERE.
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