Nairobi AI Forum 2026

Accelerating Adoption & Impact: Building Green, Scalable AI Infrastructure with Africa's Innovators

9–10 February 2026

Nairobi, Kenya

The Nairobi AI Forum is an invite-only, in-person working forum designed to move beyond dialogue and toward implementation.
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Across two days, participants will examine how AI infrastructure, financing, and adoption can be approached in an integrated way - linking infrastructure builders, innovators, industry, and governments to accelerate deployment and impact across priority sectors.

Accelerating Adoption & Impact

The promise of AI, like the internet and electricity before it, lies in equitable diffusion. Delivering benefits for people and planet requires reimagined partnerships that enable safe adoption at scale.

Co-hosted by the Governments of Kenya, Italy, and the United Nations Development Programme, the Nairobi AI Forum is a focused, two-day working session with private sector leaders, innovators, financiers, and governments from Africa, Italy, the European Union, and the G7.

The Forum is dedicated to accelerating cross-border partnerships and financing models that enable green, and sovereign AI infrastructure—turning Africa's resource advantages into new industrial economies that support inclusive human development.

400+

Attendees

Unpacking AI Infrastructure in Africa

Re-imagining Partnerships

Unlocking Big Financing Bets

Meet the African AI Mavericks Driving Impact

Learn more

Day 1

Building the Foundations for Scalable AI

AI Infrastructure in the African Context

Africa’s AI future depends on building fit-for-purpose infrastructure that reflects local realities, from energy and connectivity to data availability and compute access.
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This session unpacks what AI infrastructure means in practice across African markets, spotlighting African-led infrastructure builders developing data centres, compute platforms, and energy-efficient systems that lay the foundations for scalable, sovereign AI ecosystems.

AI Diffusion Across Key Sectors

Moving from pilots to real-world impact requires the effective diffusion of AI across priority sectors.
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This session explores how African innovators are deploying AI in agriculture, education, health, energy, and other critical sectors, highlighting the enabling role of infrastructure, partnerships, and local ecosystems in scaling adoption and delivering measurable development outcomes.

Financing for AI Diffusion

Scaling AI adoption across Africa requires patient, coordinated, and innovative financing.
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This session unpacks financing models for AI diffusion, from blended finance and public-private partnerships to venture capital and development finance, examining how capital can be mobilised to support infrastructure development, scale deployment across sectors, and accelerate Africa’s AI-driven growth.

Featured Speakers

Leaders and innovators shaping the future of AI infrastructure in Africa

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Day 2

Breakout Sessions & Thematic Deep-Dives

Day 2 is dedicated to focused breakout discussions and deep-dive sessions that turn dialogue into practical collaboration pathways for AI adoption across Africa.

Panel Discussion

Focused discussion on bilateral cooperation opportunities

Breakout Rooms & Structured Networking

Facilitated sessions for deeper partnership exploration

Session I

Breakout Discussions

Startups, Capital, and Scaling AI in Africa

Building AI Skills at Scale in Africa

From AI Research to Applied Impact in Africa

Session II

Thematic Deep-Dives

Building Modular Data Centres for Africa’s AI Future

African Languages and the Future of Inclusive AI

Unlocking Financing for AI Infrastructure

What comes next?

Key reflections and insights from each breakout group

Consolidated input shaping a shared roadmap

Contributions feeding into the India AI Impact Summit

Bringing Together the AI Adoption Ecosystem

Participants will join focused breakout discussions to translate high-level dialogue into practical insights and actionable pathways for AI adoption.

African Innovators

Local innovators piloting and scaling AI solutions grounded in African infrastructure and real-world use cases.

Industry & Infrastructure Partners

Private-sector leaders enabling AI adoption through compute, energy, manufacturing, cloud, finance, and applied AI capabilities.

Governments & Institutions

Public-sector leaders and institutions shaping policy, regulation, and long-term frameworks for inclusive and sovereign AI development.

Nairobi AI Forum 2026

Accelerating Adoption & Impact: Building Green, Scalable AI Infrastructure with Africa's Innovators

In Partnership With

Accelerating Adoption & Impact

400+

Attendees

Unpacking AI Infrastructure in Africa

Re-imagining Partnerships

Unlocking Big Financing Bets

Meet the African AI Mavericks Driving Impact

Day 1

Building the Foundations for Scalable AI

AI Infrastructure in the African Context

AI Diffusion Across Key Sectors

Financing for AI Diffusion

Featured Speakers

Speaker

Speaker

Speaker

Speaker

Speaker

Speaker

Speaker

Day 2

Breakout Sessions & Thematic Deep-Dives

Panel Discussion

Breakout Rooms & Structured Networking

Session I

Breakout Discussions

Session II

Thematic Deep-Dives

What comes next?

Bringing Together the AI Adoption Ecosystem

African Innovators

Industry & Infrastructure Partners

Governments & Institutions

Road to the AI Impact Impact