Venture investor Kola Aina believes Africa is not watching the artificial intelligence revolution from the sidelines — and far from a bubble waiting to burst, he argues, the moment is better understood as a bloom.
Aina, Founding Partner of Ventures Platform Fund, shared that view at The Bluechip Data and AI Summit 3.0 on Wednesday, where artificial intelligence leaders, founders and policymakers gathered at Eko Hotel & Suites in Victoria Island, Lagos.
Held under the theme “The Future, Now: AI-Driven Transformation for Africa,” the summit, organised by Bluechip Technologies, outlined how participants across sectors could leverage artificial intelligence to drive growth.
The summit’s keynote was delivered by Rosanne Werner, Founder/CEO of XCelerate IQ, who highlighted the immense economic potential of artificial intelligence across the continent.
“Africa’s AI market is predicted to go from 4.9 billion to 16.9 billion by 2030. It is time to act now. It is time to act intentionally,” Werner said.
Werner further explained that organisations must focus heavily on the practicality and human elements of implementing these technological changes.
“You should ask, what’s the specific problem we’re trying to solve here, and is AI the most efficient at all for the job? Some AI solutions cost more than the problem in itself,” she noted.
Addressing organisational hurdles and the high failure rate of technological initiatives, Werner pointed out the underlying structural and psychological friction.
“A report found 65% of employees say that AI helped with productivity, but only 12% say it is transforming how work is getting done. This gap is an actual knowledge gap— a human gap. And you can’t close a human problem with a technology solution,” she said, driving home the need for strategic alignment.
Mirroring Werner’s thoughts on a human/knowledge gap, Dr Aristotle Onumo, Director, Stakeholder Management and Partnership Department at the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), spoke on the urgency of continental adoption.
“The greatest risk in Africa today is not that AI will advance so quickly, [but] that Africa may be moving so slowly. We must become leaders of intelligence. We must invest in African data sets, support African researchers, and develop African AI models,” Onumo said.
Meanwhile, Kola Aina rejected the framing of an AI investment bubble outright, offering a more optimistic reading of the moment.
Aina shared his thoughts during a fireside chat titled “VC.AI: Pipelines, Profits and a Bubble?” alongside Olumide Soyombo, Co-Founder of Bluechip Technologies.
“I belong to the school of thought that believes we are, in fact, not in a bubble, and I know that’s contrary. I actually think we’re in a bloom: the birth of a new horizon and a new inflexion point for the global economy,” Aina stated.
Aina acknowledged that the same technologies accelerating legitimate enterprise also amplify the capabilities of bad actors, identifying this as the central concern in any discussion of AI risk.
“AI accelerates what’s possible when a bad actor has access to technology, and I think that is the biggest risk,” he noted.
On his part, Olumide Soyombo, Co-Founder of Bluechip Technologies, countered the notion that African companies must develop foundational technologies from scratch.
“I think a common misconception people have is that we have to build everything ourselves and own it ourselves. Certain things have been solved, so let us solve for things that we can, and localise,” Soyombo stated.
Soyombo also shared the success story behind their latest product innovation, which originated from the Hackathon of the first version of the Bluechip summit.
During the summit, Bluechip also announced that it had acquired YarnGPT.
Soyombo recounted the origin story of YarnGPT. He described how Saheed Azeez participated in the first edition of Bluechip Summit’s hackathons and founded YarnGPT, a text-to-speech AI model for Nigerian languages built in tones and voices that reflect local expression.
Discussing the broader economic impact on human capital, Kazeem Tewogbade, Managing Director and Co-Founder, Bluechip Technologies, analysed employment trends.
“[AI] will create jobs, and also give rise to other opportunities that would either create new types of jobs. At the end of the day it’s still going to be net positive in terms of employment,” Tewogbade noted.
Highlighting inclusivity at the event, Gbemisola Hassan, Event Lead for the Bluechip AI Summit 3.0, spoke on the growing footprint of women in technology.
“At the summit this year, our keynote speaker, for the first time, was female. We’re trying to include women in activities like this in this industry,” Hassan said.
Across every session at the summit, there was a unifying message: Africa has both the need and the window to shape its own AI future. The continent’s leaders and industry honchos need to move at the speed the moment demands to bring AI adoption and increased productivity within reach.
