Ghana is generating and storing rapidly growing volumes of digital data, positioning it to become West Africa’s next “data coast,” but the country remains in the early stages of using that resource to build competitive artificial intelligence (AI) applications, Dr. Eugene Frimpong data analytics and AI expert says.
Speaking during an X Space discussion hosted by The High Street Journal, Dr. Frimpong said Ghana’s accelerated digitization of government services and rising mobile and broadband use have created a large and expanding data footprint. He argued that data, not software, is the core input for modern AI systems.
“All this stuff we are saying about AI, AI does not exist in Ghana. It relies on data,” he said. Dr. Frimpong said Ghana’s mobile data traffic is growing at roughly 40%, and described the country as a regional leader in data storage capacity. He cited the presence of government infrastructure through the National Information Technology Agency, as well as private investment including Google’s $39 million data center in Ghana.
“We are moving from being the gold coast to actually being the data coast,” he said, calling data “the digital oil of the 21st century.” While Ghana is accumulating data from healthcare records, passport systems and national identification programs, Frimpong said the bigger challenge is turning that data into productivity gains, better public services and new industries.
“We are collecting the data, but the question is, are we actually using it to better our lives?” he said. He pointed to countries such as Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa as being further ahead in applying AI to economic and public-sector problems. Dr. Frimpong said Ghana is still at an “infant stage” in deploying AI at scale, despite having the raw data foundation.
He cited examples of practical use cases for Ghana, including predictive healthcare models to reduce preventable emergencies such as stroke and heart attacks, and AI-driven tools to combat telecom fraud. According to him, Ghana’s youth could compete in global AI-related jobs if the country invests in skills development, arguing that AI is not out of reach for ordinary citizens.
“The average Ghanaian is mathematically sharp,” he said, pointing to informal traders who calculate complex transactions without calculators. He urged young people to pursue online certifications and training programs, noting that entry into AI careers does not always require formal university pathways.
His co-panelist on the Space, Mac-Jordan Degadjor, touched on Ghana’s biggest constraints in the AI and data space, he notes that energy supply, skilled labor retention and policy readiness, prebvent Ghana from gaining full benefit in the space.
Power availability is critical for operating data centers and AI systems, he said, warning that even brief electricity interruptions can affect high-grade facilities.“First on the list is actually energy or power,” he said. He also pointed to brain drain as a risk, arguing that data centers and digital infrastructure will not deliver economic value without skilled engineers to manage systems and ensure reliability.
Finally, he noted that Ghana needs clearer policy frameworks and broader stakeholder engagement, including the use of regulatory sandboxes to test new AI rules before nationwide rollout. Both resource persons aggreed that Ghana’s data growth gives it a strategic opening in the AI economy, but the country must move from collecting information to building applications, industries and exportable services from it.
