Africa’s AI minerals: time for the G7 to up its game

As G7 leaders gather in France this week for their annual summit, they are aligning on their anxiety to win the race for artificial intelligence leadership and to secure access to the critical minerals that underpin the technology. Yet the G7’s AI ambitions have a major blind spot: Africa’s critical mineral supply and what it will genuinely take to secure it.

Africa holds around 30% of the world’s critical mineral reserves, including 70% of global cobalt reserves in the Democratic Republic of Congo, alongside vast deposits of lithium, copper, graphite and rare earths—the essential building blocks of AI infrastructure, semiconductors, batteries and renewable energy systems. At present, Africa captures only 10–15% of the value generated from these resources – because processing, refining and manufacturing largely take place elsewhere, often in China, while product design, marketing and distribution are dominated by G7 companies.

This disconnect exposes a striking contradiction. The G7 is racing to secure critical mineral supply chains and reduce its dependence on China, yet too often its engagement with Africa remains focused on access to raw materials rather than building the industries that would create jobs and prosperity on the continent. If the G7 wants resilient and diversified supply chains, it cannot continue to treat Africa simply as a source of minerals.

African leaders increasingly want something different. Across the continent, governments are seeking to move beyond the old model of exporting raw materials and importing finished products. They want to develop processing facilities, refining capacity, battery manufacturing and other industries that can capture a greater share of the value generated by the global AI and energy transitions.

It is time the G7 recognised that Africa has options. China has spent years investing in infrastructure, industrial projects and mineral processing capacity across the continent. Whatever concerns may exist about aspects of that model, it reflects an understanding that African countries want more than extraction—they want industrialisation. China has been speaking that language for years in its dealings with the continent. If the G7 cannot position itself as a credible alternative partner for investment, value addition and shared prosperity, African countries will continue deepening partnerships with those who can.

The partnership stakes extend far beyond minerals alone. Africa’s population is growing by around 2.5% annually, and 60% of its people are under the age of 25. By 2030, one in five people on Earth will be African, rising to more than one in four by 2050. This demographic transformation could become a powerful engine of growth and innovation. But without sufficient investment, jobs and infrastructure, it could also deepen economic insecurity and instability.

The warning signs are already visible. Some 43% of sub-Saharan Africans live in extreme poverty, while recent food, fuel and climate shocks have pushed millions closer to the brink. At precisely the moment when investment is most needed, G7 support is moving in the opposite direction. Between 2021 and 2024, G7 official development assistance to Africa fell by 19%, while preliminary 2025 figures point to even steeper declines.

These cuts are not simply a development challenge. They represent a strategic mistake. Without concessional finance, infrastructure investment and support for industrialisation, African countries will struggle to move up critical mineral value chains. The result will be continued dependence on exporting raw materials while the economic benefits of AI and clean-energy technologies are captured elsewhere.

If the G7 is serious about building secure and diversified supply chains and supporting Africa’s self-reliance and “graduation” from concessional support, it must up its game.

That means offering genuine partnerships centred on value-chain creation in Africa, not simply extraction. It means adopting whole-chain approaches that connect mining, processing, refining, manufacturing, energy infrastructure, transport and skills development.

It also means mobilising finance at scale. Development finance institutions, export credit agencies and multilateral lenders should increase concessional and blended finance for critical mineral industrialisation. Building competitive industries requires long-term capital that private investors alone are often unwilling to provide.

The G7 should also deploy advance market commitments and long-term offtake agreements to create demand certainty for products processed and manufactured in Africa. Investors are far more likely to finance new facilities when they know buyers will exist. Such mechanisms could unlock billions of dollars in investment while helping diversify global supply chains.

Africa’s mineral wealth could help power both the G7’s AI ambitions and Africa’s own economic transformation. But without investment in local processing, refining and manufacturing, the continent risks remaining trapped in a colonial-era economic model—exporting raw materials while others capture the higher-value stages of production.

The AI revolution cannot be built on extraction alone. If the G7 wants secure supply chains, resilient economies and sustainable growth, it must invest not only in Africa’s minerals but also in Africa itself.

Khalil Elouardighi, a director at ONE.