Insights and analysis

China’s outsized role in tech in Africa

From Chinese companies laying down the cables, to Chinese built data centers and inexpensive Chinese smartphones

China has played an outsized role in the development of Africa’s internet and telecommunications infrastructure. Recently a $35-million Chinese-built data center in Tanzania and a similar project in Djibouti that is part of China’s One Belt One Road initiative made headlines. Not only that, Chinese companies are now significant players on the ‘front-end’ through their relatively inexpensive smartphones and other digital devices.

The China-Africa Project podcast looks into China’s role in the development of the Africa’s technological capacity that has contributed to the continent’s mobile market growing from 100 million to one billion users in the span of a decade.