Anthropic’s new memorandum of understanding with Rwanda to deploy artificial intelligence tools in health and education has drawn both praise and skepticism, highlighting a deeper question facing many African governments: Will partnerships with foreign AI firms build domestic capacity — or deepen reliance on foreign technology stacks?
The new three-year partnership aims to match “Rwanda’s needs and priorities” by providing AI tools, developer access, and training to public servants and health systems, but the details of the agreement haven’t been shared.
“This entire announcement actually is about adoption, really, rather than building local capacity,” Ayantola Alayande, a researcher at the Global Center on AI Governance, told Devex. “It’s basically a nice way to put market capture.”