Addis Ababa, September 24, 2026 (FMC) — Ethiopia’s expanding investment in digital skills and artificial intelligence is emerging as part of a broader African push to shape the next technology era, with President Taye Atske-Selassie underscoring the need for the Global South to move from the margins of technological transformation to the forefront of innovation.
Addressing the 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, President Taye framed artificial intelligence as a defining choice for the developing world, asking whether the technology will deepen global inequality or become a catalyst for collective growth.
“Africa asks whether AI becomes instrument of global inequality or catalyst for collective growth,” he said, stressing that the Global South must lead the technological revolution rather than remain a helpless spectator.
President Taye said initiatives emerging across the Global South provide grounds for hope, demonstrating that developing countries can build the capabilities required to participate meaningfully in shaping the technologies that will increasingly influence economies and societies.
He pointed to Ethiopia’s Five Million Coders initiative and the soon-to-be-commissioned University of Artificial Intelligence as concrete examples of the country’s efforts to develop technological skills and institutional capacity for the emerging AI era.
The initiatives reflect Ethiopia’s broader effort to equip its young population with digital capabilities while establishing platforms for advanced learning and innovation, positioning technology as an important component of the country’s development trajectory.
For Africa, the President’s message places technological transformation within a wider question of development agency: whether the continent will primarily consume technologies developed elsewhere or develop the skills, institutions and innovations needed to help shape the future itself.
His remarks also linked technological leadership to the broader aspirations of the Global South, where expanding access to knowledge, skills, capital and innovation can help turn emerging technologies into engines of productivity, opportunity and inclusive growth.
The AI agenda formed part of President Taye’s wider call for an international system capable of responding to rapidly changing global realities, underscoring the importance of ensuring that technological transformation contributes to a more equitable and prosperous future for all.