Artificial Intelligence: Akkadian-Level Annihilator or Lifeline for Africa?
Part 1 of an AI Series
First things first, what on earth is an Akkadian, how is it an annihilator, and why are we comparing it to AI?
Good questions!
Akkad was a city in the northern part of ancient Babylonia with an ambitious leader known as Emperor Sargon.
About 4300 years ago, he approached independent states along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (present-day Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey) with a bold unification proposition.
His vision? An advanced, powerful kingdom more expansive than anything that had come before. He succeeded, and the world’s first civilization, the Akkadian Empire, was formed (answering our first question).
For a time, that civilization flourished, stretching across vast lands with varying climates. Then, 100 years in, the rains grew erratic, and the northern lands, once fertile, could no longer meet the Empire’s demand. Food shortages set in, and famine followed.
The ancient Curse of Akkad text1 captures the devastation in haunting detail:
… the large arable tracts yielded no grain, the inundated fields yielded no fish, the irrigated orchards yielded no syrup or wine, the thick clouds did not rain.
What Befell the Akkadian Empire?
For centuries, historians and scientists debated what doomed the empire.
Then, Harvey Weiss, a Yale archaeologist, and his colleagues discovered that the area was suddenly abandoned about 4200 years ago, and the rich soil was replaced by dust.
That suggested a sudden onset of severe drought due to abrupt climactic change that affected the fertile lands.2
In 2019, Oxford palaeoclimatologist Stacy Carolin and her team added to the discourse after they analyzed stalagmites in Iran.
The results revealed two prolonged droughts: one starting 4510 years ago and another 4260 years ago, lasting 110 and 290 years, respectively.3
The second drought coincided with the Akkadian Empire’s collapse, providing strong evidence that climate change was at least partly responsible for Akkad’s downfall or, more aptly, annihilation.
So, an Akkadian is an empire that pursued progress above all else, harmed the environment in the process, and was annihilated by climate change.
Okay, fair! What's it got to do with AI?
Akkadian Empire vs. Climate Change vs. AI
Some fear that this Akkadian-level catastrophic collapse and destruction will happen to the current civilization (by current, I mean ours) if the world continues to hurtle towards AI-powered progress at the current breakneck speed without taking a moment to measure the environmental cost.
That is not to say AI will be solely responsible for climate collapse. However, a 2023 study by researchers at the University of California suggests that Artificial Intelligence could be the tipping point that tumbles everything down.
Training a single large language model like LaMDA or GPT-3 consumes hundreds of megawatt-hours of electricity, generates tons of carbon emissions, and evaporates vast amounts of water to cool data centers.4
To put it into perspective, the brief moment it took to prompt Gemini to generate the tumbling blocks image consumed energy equivalent to a full 30-minute fast charge of a Samsung phone.5
Now, scale that to the millions of daily images, videos, and text generations. The environmental cost is staggering.
For Africa, this is not a distant concern. It is an immediate crisis.
As the hottest continent on Earth, Africa already bears the harshest consequences of climate change. The recent flooding of the Sahara—an event once considered nearly impossible—is proof.
More than that, in 2022, a report by the Sydney-based Institute for Economics and Peace stated that thanks to a myriad of challenges, with climate change being at the top of the list, much of Sub-Saharan Africa would be unsustainable by 2050.6
Yet, even with this looming threat, Africa faces an impossible dilemma. To embrace AI is to risk worsening an already fragile ecological future. To reject it is to fall behind—once again—in a revolution that could redefine global power.
So what should the continent do?
Especially when AI's potential capacity to reshape global dynamics is something researchers have started pointing out. A report by the OECD’s Expert Group on AI Futures7 identified 38 potential future AI risks and noted ‘power being concentrated in a small number of companies or countries’ as one of the top threats.
Mhhh🤔
Let’s ponder the question a bit longer. For now, here is a look at how the global AI battle is shaping up.
The AI Regional Contest Thus Far
The US blew the AI race wide open with the release of ChatGPT in November 2022 as a free ‘research preview.’
Since then, the US has become a startup powerhouse. As per the CB Insights AI trends report 20248, the US captured 76% of AI funding in 2024, and AI startups in the US accounted for 49% of the deals.
Still, this does not mean America is the undisputed AI leader. China, loathe to be left behind, put a lot of money into universities, AI training labs, and the commercialization of many AI systems between 2010 and 2024.
That investment bore fruit with the launch of Deepseek and is more evident in the superiority of Deepseek’s R1 model, released in late January.9
For context, OpenAIs ‘o’ models (o1, o3-mini, and o3-mini-high) are the reasoning models. That means they can ‘think’ before they answer and, as a result, can solve more complex problems.
o1 was OpenAI's first reasoning model, and the release of R1 was in direct competition. However, Deepseek did something genius: they made R1 open source and completely free. Open source means anyone, including you, can access, modify, and build upon.
It was a deliberate chess move by China. “Hey US,” it said, “we’ve caught up to you, we’ve done it cheaper, and our model is blowing yours out of the water by several metrics.”
Away from the AI labs-led cold war between China and the US, the European Union is also a significant contender. In 2018, the EU launched an AI strategy10 with several areas of focus, such as:
Targeting an investment of 20 billion Euros per year by the EU and private and public sectors.
Launching programs such as Union Horizon Europe that would invest 1 billion Euros per year between 2021 and 2027
Funding AI Master’s and PhDs for talented individuals
Fostering collaboration across European research centers to avoid duplication
The strategy has yet to yield a Large Language Model similar to ChatGPT or Deepseek.
However, OpenEuroLLM, which has the EU seal of approval, is currently working on a model covering all EU languages (current and future).11 Pretty dope, no?
More than that, the EU has distinguished itself as a leader in responsible AI development. It might seem counterproductive as doing something ethically is slow.
Still, the determination to set ethical and trustworthy artificial intelligence standards might be an ace in the hole.
In the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates has decided to Leverage AI to become a significant global player.
The only way we can be considered a larger country in terms of our impact, ability, economy, and so forth is by leveraging AI. We will never be a country with a population of 1 billion people, but with AI, we can have the impact of a country with a billion people.
Said Omar Sultan Al Olama, the minister of state for artificial intelligence, digital economy, and remote work applications in the UAE.
In addition to these four regions at the top of the race, countries like the UK, India, and Singapore are making equally significant strides.
This 2023 global AI vibrancy visually represents all the countries in the race.
As an African, what have you observed about this contest?
Only one African country is on the list, and dead last at that! Sure, the African Union Executive Council endorsed a continental AI strategy last year (July 19, 2024).
Commendable, but how many years after the EU first launched its strategy?
How many years after the US and China actively started working on AI research?
How behind is Africa?
How Africa Missed Out on The Previous Tech Revolutions
In the book Brave New Words by Salman Khan, the author notes the need for equitable tech.
For technology to be truly transformative, it has to be equitable. It cannot increase the divide between the rich and poor. It cannot leave people behind.
Unfortunately, Africa has always been a little behind each tech revolution.
In the 1700s, Africa was deep in the heights of the transatlantic slave trade, missing out on the industrial revolution.
Between 1829 and 1940, the scramble for Africa happened, followed by colonization. In the 1940s, African countries started fighting colonial rule.
As such, the continent was either too busy suffering the consequences of colonization or fighting to liberate itself to focus or leverage any tech revolution in between.
1971 was the first time Africa could have conceivably participated in a revolution—the information and telecommunications tech transformation.
Unfortunately, again, Africa was in the process of getting its education together. Data shows that in the late 1950s, only 16% of the adult population in the continent was literate, and close to half of this number was concentrated in Ghana and Nigeria.
In some countries like Malawi, only 28 Africans had received a university education by 1959. As for former French colonies, established institutions like the University of Dakar only began admitting African students in 1957.12
That is how Africa missed out. Through no fault of its own, but still, it happened!
Why Africa Cannot Afford to be Left Behind Again
Now, here we are in 2025. The world is still going through the information and telecommunication revolution, just a different facet. In my analysis, there have been about five phases thus far.
Genuine cases can be made for why Africa didn’t take advantage of the World Wide Web and smartphone phases. As for the social media era, not so much.
Still, let's go with the benefit of the doubt and accept the excuse that internet penetration and skill in Africa had not yet caught up to the rest of the world when social media was taking off.
It’s 2025 now, and that reason is no longer valid. The continent has zero reason to miss out on AI.
Especially after studying the data and noticing how the regions that maximized the four previous phases benefitted.
Have you noticed the trend? Take a second look at the table. Companies that take advantage of each phase become game changers for their countries. Wait, it could be vice versa.
Countries that enable entrepreneurs to leverage each phase of the information and telecommunication revolution facilitate the creation of companies that become a linchpin of the nation’s economy.
Amazon has contributed over $1 trillion to the United States GDP since 2010 (Progressive Policy Institute Report)
Samsung contributes about 22% to South Korea’s GDP (Statista).
Investment-wise, Alphabet (Google's parent company) has the second highest capital expenditure investment in the United States at 24.5 billion USD. Meta, AT&T, Verizon, Walmart, Intel, and Microsoft follow Alphabet.
In 2024, Huawei generated a revenue of 860 billion yuan ($118.1 billion). In addition, Xiaomi and Alibaba are some of the biggest companies in China ( Chinese Outlet Weixin)
To experience equally staggering benefits, Africa MUST (yes, the shouting is deliberate) grab onto the AI opportunity like a starving hyena.
But what about the environmental cost?
We started by asking if AI should be sidelined for its ecological side effects or leveraged as a lifeline for Africa.
The answer is Africa cannot afford not to grab the lifeline.
That does not mean the continent should put aside the environmental concerns. Instead, African countries should aim for responsible and ethical AI. The EU is doing it. Why not Africa?
References
1. https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section2/tr215.htm
2. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.261.5124.995
3. https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1808103115
4. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/79c880vf
5. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2311.16863
6.https://www.africanews.com/2022/10/19/sub-saharan-africa-could-be-unsustainable-by-2050-report/
8. https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/ai-trends-2024/
9. https://api-docs.deepseek.com/news/news250120
10. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/european-approach-artificial-intelligence
12. https://newafricanmagazine.com/15482/
Thank you so much, Asanteni Sana (Kiswahili), for reading this article. If you enjoyed reading, please share, subscribe, and comment. I appreciate every single engagement (you should see me kicking my feet in joy🙈)
See you on Friday for part 2 of the AI series.
This has been Africa: Not an Afterthought. We lead the conversation on how Africa can leverage technology, trade (AfCFTA), regional integration and Pan-Africanism to build a continent that is not an afterthought.