Article by Dipanjan Roy Chaudhury – ET Bureau (The Economic Times), 20th Feb. 2026
Marking a landmark outcome of the AI Impact Summit 2026, India, Kenya, and Italy have announced a strategic trilateral partnership to co-design and deploy scalable, sovereign AI pathways across Africa. This collaboration, co-led by EkStep Foundation, the Directorate of Digital Economy and Emerging technologies at the Kenya Ministry of ICT and Digital Economy, and the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy, through the AI Hub for Sustainable Development, with UNDP, shifts AI implementation from fragmented experiments to AI diIusion pathways to scale impact in lives of billions of people with agency and empowerment. Leveraging the G7-endorsed AI Hub for Sustainable Development, a partnership of UNDP and the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italyand aligned with Italy’s Mattei Plan, the trilateral arrangement unites India, Italy and Kenyato collectivelywork with local public and private sector innovators to scale voice-enabled AI solutions tailored to African contexts, focusing on low-connectivity environments, local languages, and data ownership.
Key Focus Areas & Impact:
• Sector Impact: Deploying AI solutions in agriculture, health, education, livelihoods, and public services.
• Core Infrastructure: Utilizing shared horizontal enablers, including multilingual voice models and aIordable compute,
to reduce adoption barriers.
• Shared Ambition: Working toward a goal of 100 AI DiIusion Pathways by 2030 to ensure trusted, contextual AI.
This trilateral partnership will catalyze smart ecosystempathways, combining India’s innovation expertise, digital public goods and know-how, Kenya’s on-the-ground ecosystem and leadership in Africa, and Italy’s AI Hub focus on horizontal unlocks and industrial partners to deliver concrete, Africa-led progress. It is a crucial step toward building sovereign, green AI infrastructure that is Africa-led. This eIort follows the Nairobi AI Forum 2026 convened together with UNDP, which facilitated critical, immediate access for African innovators to computing resources and solidiXed the commitment to practical, impactful AI deployment through partnerships and financing.
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