KAMPALA, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- As the world pushes for adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to fasttrack development, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni argues that there are key bottlenecks that Africa must first address before taking on AI.
Museveni, who was speaking on the sidelines of the ongoing World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, said a universal approach towards addressing Africa's development has proved not to work. Economic experts argue that AI will drive the next generation of industrial revolution. The WEF meeting was held under the theme, "Globalization 4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution."
"The people excited about Artificial Intelligence are those who already have developed infrastructure and a developed human resource," Museveni said, according to a State House statement issued here on Thursday.
The side meeting were attended by Rwanda President Paul Kagame, South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa, Tunisia's President Beji Caid Essebsi and former prime minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair, among others.
The Ugandan leader said Africa needs to overcome 10 main bottlenecks including infrastructure development such as roads, rail and electricity, human resource development, market integration to lower costs of doing business and attract investments.
He said the continent also needs to deal with the issue of economic and political integration for credible bargaining units in addition to an educated human resource.
He said Africa is now developing partly because of governments not being hostile to the private sector.
"Part of our lagging behind was the attitude governments had against the private sector, now that has changed," Museveni told the meeting organized by the Africa Strategy Group and moderated by the Executive Director of OXFAM Winnie Byanyima.
Byanyima in a separate meeting with Museveni said some technologies associated with the Forth Industrial Revolution such as AI may be a challenge in countries with no infrastructure such as roads, electricity, and railway to bring the cost of doing business down.
Museveni, while meeting Klaus Martin Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the WEF, said as the world pushes for the fourth industrial revolution, there are gaps of the second and third revolutions in places like Africa that must be plugged for proper development to happen.
Schwab is convinced that the world is at the beginning of the fourth industrial revolution.
