Making Big Tech’s Invisible Hand Visible in Africa

Africa has become a new frontier for Big Tech. It has become a source of data and labor, a market for digital products and increasingly a home for the physical infrastructure powering the global AI economy. Yet the relationships being built between technology companies and African governments remain remarkably difficult to scrutinize.

This cross-border investigation seeks to lift the lid on those relationships. Reporting across South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria examines how governments are courting global technology companies, what companies receive in return, and whether laws designed to protect citizens, workers, and public resources have kept pace.

In South Africa, reporters investigate the approval of a major Equinix hyperscale data center development and the political and regulatory battle around Starlink. In Kenya and Nigeria, they map opaque government agreements with technology companies and investigate unanswered questions about data, ownership, lobbying, and accountability. In Kenya, the project follows the workers whose often poorly paid and psychologically damaging labor helps power the global AI industry.

Together, the investigations examine a form of extraction that has received far less scrutiny in Africa than elsewhere. The project asks what happens when governments hungry for investment and powerful technology companies build relationships largely beyond public view—and who pays the price.