Kenya charts path to ethical, inclusive, and innovation-driven AI adoption says Mudavadi

Prime Cabinet secretary for foreign and Diaspora Affairs Musalia Mudavadi addressed the media on 19, March,2025 [ Jenipher Wachie, Standard]

Kenya is positioning itself to become Africa's leading hub for artificial intelligence (AI) model innovation, with a vision focused on sustainable development, economic growth, and social inclusion.

Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi said Kenya aims to lead in AI research and application by harnessing its transformative potential for the future.

"In Kenya, there's already a very serious conversation that is taking place, and our focus is to implement a strategy that provides a comprehensive framework to guide Kenya in harnessing the transformative power of AI, ensuring its deployment benefits all sectors of society while adhering to ethical principles and inclusivity," said Mudavadi.

Speaking at the Global AI Summit 2025 held in Kigali, Rwanda, Mudavadi emphasized that Kenya is keen to ensure the security of its AI ecosystem, adding that the country is shaping a government-led vision rooted in ethics, innovation, and inclusivity.

"As a continent, we need to not allow ourselves to be driven by fear. Fear should not drive us out of town on this agenda of artificial intelligence," he said.

This comes after the recently launched National Artificial Intelligence Strategy (2025-2030), released by the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy.

The strategy outlines Kenya's ambition to adopt AI technologies and lead in model innovation and commercialization with solutions tailored to local and continental needs.

"Investment in education becomes very critical considering our budgetary allocation of up to Ksh 600 billion on education. We need to ensure that a component of our budget is driven to the right programs tailored towards tooling the youth towards AI-driven technologies," Mudavadi explained.

"Kenya's programs that focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics will be re-defined and strengthened because we have a massive young techno-savvy population that needs to be equipped at the onset," he added.

Key sectors identified in Kenya's AI strategy include healthcare, agriculture, financial services, and public administration. Mudavadi noted that health tech and smart agriculture are areas receiving significant investment, supporting rapid deployment of AI solutions.

Supporting this strategy is an expanding network of digital infrastructure, data centers, cloud resources, and national research hubs, all aimed at building robust AI capacity. Legislation to govern this emerging space is also underway.

"What Kenya is also doing is to have sweeteners to attract the youth in the fields like agriculture, and that is where AI comes in to ensure that the youth take interest in sectors that initially largely relied on traditional labour-intensive practices," said Mudavadi.