Uganda is entering the artificial intelligence (AI) race, but the nature of that race is changing. For the past few years, the focus has largely been on AI adoption, how businesses, universities, governments and professionals can use tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini.
But the more important question now is who owns the value created by AI. The countries that benefit most from AI will not simply be those that use it. They will be those that own the skills, data, companies, intellectual property and infrastructure behind it.
For Uganda, that creates a strategic choice. Will we become better consumers of AI, or will we build enough capability to own part of the AI economy?
Uganda already has a significant digital market. By December 2025, the Uganda Communications Commission reported 47.1 million active mobile subscriptions, 36.3 million mobile-money accounts and 18.5 million internet subscriptions. That creates a large potential market for AI-powered services.
But adoption does not automatically create an AI industry. A company using ChatGPT to write reports is an AI user. A company building an agricultural AI system for African farmers, developing technology for local languages or creating an AI product that can be exported is building part of the AI economy. That distinction matters because the value of AI increasingly lies in owning the technology, data, intellectual property and businesses around it.
Uganda is not starting from zero. Sunbird AI’s Sunflower is an important example of local innovation. The multilingual AI system has been designed around Ugandan linguistic realities and reportedly supports 31 Ugandan languages.
Makerere University is also strengthening the country’s AI research capacity through its work in artificial intelligence and data science, including research in areas such as healthcare, agriculture, language technology and climate.
These examples demonstrate that Uganda does not need to build another OpenAI to participate in the AI economy.
Our opportunity lies in areas where local knowledge matters in African languages, agriculture, healthcare, education, financial services, climate and public administration.
The competitive advantage may not be in building the biggest AI model, but in building AI that understands problems global companies may not fully understand.
Uganda’s AI challenge is often described as a talent problem. It is partly that, but talent alone will not build an industry.
The 2025 AI Talent Readiness Index placed Uganda 13th in Africa with a score of 39.6, compared with 49.7 for Kenya and 46.9 for Rwanda. The bigger issue is what happens to the talent after it has been trained.
A developer needs computing resources. A researcher needs funding and data. A startup needs capital and customers. A university needs stronger links with industry.
An AI economy therefore requires a chain, from talent to research to data to computing to capital to products to customers and finally to exports. Uganda has pieces of this chain, but they have not yet come together at sufficient scale.
The danger is not that Ugandans will fail to use AI. The danger is that we could become extremely good at using technology that we do not own.
Imagine banks relying on foreign AI systems, schools using foreign AI tutors, hospitals deploying foreign AI tools, businesses automating through foreign platforms and newsrooms depending on foreign AI products. Uganda could become highly AI-enabled while remaining technologically dependent.
There is nothing wrong with using foreign technology. Uganda should use the world’s best AI tools. The problem arises when adoption does not create local capability.
If we continually pay for foreign platforms while importing the underlying technology, intellectual property and expertise, much of the economic value created by AI will remain outside Uganda.
This is why AI should be treated as an economic competitiveness issue, not simply a technology issue. AI will influence productivity, jobs, business models and exports. The question is whether Ugandan companies and workers will capture part of that value.
Uganda needs a build-and-use strategy. We should use global AI aggressively, but simultaneously invest in our own capabilities. Universities should train people not only to use AI but to build, evaluate and deploy it. More attention should go towards machine learning, data engineering, AI research, product development, robotics and AI safety.
Researchers need pathways to commercialise their work. Startups need capital and access to computing. Government can become an early customer for credible Ugandan AI solutions.
Most importantly, Uganda needs to build for a market larger than Uganda. A language technology product should not stop at Ugandan languages. An agricultural AI platform should be designed for African farmers. Healthcare and financial technologies should be capable of serving regional markets. That is where Uganda can realistically compete.
The global AI race is moving quickly from generative AI towards increasingly capable systems, including agentic AI that can perform tasks, interact with software and complete workflows with less human direction.
Uganda cannot spend the next five years debating whether AI matters. We already know it does. The question is whether today’s adoption will create tomorrow’s capability. Uganda has the talent, universities, digital market and early examples of homegrown AI innovation. What is missing is the scale, investment and coordination to turn these pieces into an industry.
We do not need to build another Silicon Valley. We need to ensure that when AI reshapes the global economy, Ugandans own part of the value it creates. The AI race is not ultimately about who has the best chatbot. It is about who owns the technology, data, companies, skills and intellectual property powering the next economy. Uganda should not only become AI-literate. It must become AI-capable.
Bill Dan Arnold Borodi is Content and Editorial Lead at Publicist East Africa and an AI Strategist.
