South Africa's AI Crossroads: Access Is Not the Same as Control
There is a pattern in South Africa's economic history that keeps repeating itself. The country gains access to a strategic resource or infrastructure system, benefits partially from it, and then watches the real value flow elsewhere, to the entity that owns it. It happened with mining. It happened with electricity. It happened with telecommunications. The warning signs are visible again, this time with artificial intelligence, and the window to act differently is narrower than most policymakers seem to appreciate.