Energy Apartheid Denying Africa Tech Future |
Africa’s push to host world-class data centers — AI’s digital engines — is running up against a political embargo on the fuels that reliably power them, and ordinary Africans are paying the price.
Kenya just shelved a $1 billion project backed by Microsoft and UAE-based G42. President William Ruto explained the decision plainly: The facility would have consumed roughly one-third of the country’s entire 3,000-megawatt installed capacity – the amount of power from a single coal-fired power plant. Such a modest amount of electricity cannot support a modern lifestyle for a nation of more than 58 million people, much less meet the added requirements of power-hungry data centers.
A key factor contributing to Africa’s paltry energy production is a systematic embargo on fossil fuels in the name of climate action, which has disrupted fossil fuel investments in Africa over the past decade or so.
Energy poverty: The fruit of green colonialism
Across Africa, over 600 million people still lack access to electricity and more than 900 million still cook with biomass like cow dung and wood. Yet global financiers and Western NGOs treat fossil fuels, including natural gas, as public enemy number one. This has real effects: Financial restrictions from major institutions freeze investments in the fastest route to stable........