A Lesson for the Global Majority on External AI Influence
Global Majority countries must be the arbiters of their own AI futures.
Welcome back to Digital Cognoscente! The past few months have been extremely busy, and I’m grateful that we’ve surpassed 4,000 subscribers. It’s an honor to see people engage with my work, and I’ve been fortunate to have real-life conversations about some of my articles. For this edition, I wanted to go deeper into a piece I recently wrote on corporate capture in global AI ecosystems.
In May 2025, I attended the Deep Tech Summit in Ben Guerir, Morocco, on the campus of UM6P (honestly, one of the most beautiful campuses I’ve visited globally!) and had an interesting interaction while speaking on a panel that inspired some new thinking on the state of external influence in Africa’s AI ecosystem.
While the panel was wrapping up, we were asked to reflect on recommendations for African governments pertaining to AI, and I mentioned how corporate capture is rising and that countries must avoid AI development, research, and governance being steered completely by external funders and institutional bodies, while ensuring that these aspects are grounded in African realities and needs.
Brazil is a Global Majority country that is top of mind when I think about the detrimental impacts of corporate capture, especially in AI governance, given how the government amended several provisions of AI legislation due to lobbying. As someone based in the United States and Washington, D.C., I’m acutely aware of how corporate influence has heavily shaped the lack of federal legislation on AI and data privacy, and how governments can even try to preempt independent jurisdictions from passing AI legislation, which has been interesting, to say the least!
However, I want to note that I am not completely opposed to corporate or even philanthropic partnerships in AI ecosystems because, for many Global Majority countries, especially those in Africa, it is the primary way AI (and science) R&D can be reliably funded due to limited government budgets. However, this must be done cautiously and with local priorities in mind.
I’ve been in New Delhi, India, over the week, attending and speaking at the AI Impact Summit, and I feel that this piece is quite timely and also very relevant. I’ve seen a few insightful reflections touching on corporate capture within the Summit (here and here), and honestly think that it is a challenge many other countries in the Global Majority will struggle with as high-profile AI partnerships become more enticing.
You can read my full piece, “Corporate Interests Must Not Co-Opt Africa’s AI Moment,” in The Pan African Review here. I enjoyed writing this piece and look forward to seeing the discourse it raises.
Thanks for reading Digital Cognoscente! I’ve published multiple pieces of commentary and research over the past few months, along with being featured in a great interview series with The Maybe unpacking dominant narratives on AI; feel free to check out my latest work below:
Reframing Impact: Multilateralism for The Maybe, in partnership with the AI Now Institute and Aapti Institute
Corporate Interests Must Not Co-Opt Africa’s AI Moment for The Pan African Review
The Global Majority in International AI Governance co-authored with Mubarak Raji for The Handbook on the Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence
Assessing the Case for Africa-Centric AI Safety Evaluations led by the ILINA Program (an extremely great group of emerging AI research talent in Africa!)
AI Governance in a Global Context: Policy and Regulatory Approaches chapter in the 2025 Network Readiness Index (NRI) by the Portulans Institute
Also, here are a few articles I’ve found insightful over the past week or so:
Algorithmic Misogynoir in Content Moderation Practice by Brandeis Marshall
The Trouble With ‘Showing the Real Africa’ by Lee Nxumalo for Africa is a Country
Was Dorothy Roberts’s Family a Social Experiment? in The Cut
India’s AI Wedding Buffet: Generous Portions, Political Economy Heartburn by Shruti Rajagopalan
South-South AI Collaboration: Advancing Practical Pathways by Lakshmee Sharma and Jane Munga for Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
‘Colonial-era classism’: Residents decry demolitions in Nigeria’s Makoko by Pelumi Salako for Al Jazeera
AI Sovereignty Won’t Come from Renting Big Tech’s Models by Raffi Krikorian for Rest of World
Follow me on LinkedIn and subscribe to my newsletter to stay updated on my latest perspectives! You can also engage with me on Bluesky, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, where I share a lot of my work and professional life behind the scenes.
Digital Cognoscente is a newsletter that is formally published on LinkedIn and reposted to other platforms, including Substack.