By Mark Longyen, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
A robot directing traffic or cleaning a floor, a farmer deploying drones, a shopper paying digitally and a worker collaborating with machines are everyday scenes in China.
Together, they illustrate how technologies once associated with science fiction are becoming instruments of production, mobility, commerce, education and everyday life.
China’s technological transformation has moved beyond laboratories into transport systems, factories, farms, hospitals, schools, homes, and commercial centres.
At its centre is Artificial Intelligence (AI) increasingly integrated with robotics, 5G, cloud computing, big data and advanced manufacturing.
China’s AI industry exceeded 1.2 trillion yuan (179 billion dollars) in 2025, growing 40 per cent year-after-year, according to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.
More than 6,600 AI companies were operating in China by June 2026, accounting for about 15 per cent of the global total.
Beijing’s “AI Plus” initiative seeks to accelerate the integration of artificial intelligence across economic and social sectors, including traditional industries.
It was against this backdrop that Chinese President Xi Jinping underscored the need for China to share its technological experience with Africa during the 2024 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Beijing Summit.
The summit had “Joining Hands to Advance Modernisation and Build a High-Level China-Africa Community with a Shared Future” as its theme.
“We will build with Africa a digital technology cooperation centre and initiate 20 digital demonstration projects so as to embrace together the latest round of technological revolution and industrial transformation.
“China and Africa account for one-third of the world population. Without our modernisation, there will be no global modernisation. On the path to modernisation, no one, and no country, should be left behind,” Xi said.
The significance for Africa lies not simply in China’s technological scale, but in how digital technologies are being connected to infrastructure, manufacturing, services and human skills.
Chinese factories increasingly use AI to monitor equipment, identify defects, analyse production data and optimise manufacturing processes.
Robots undertake repetitive, hazardous and precision-intensive operations, while workers increasingly supervise systems and perform tasks requiring specialised knowledge and judgment.
Such factories depend on extensive digital infrastructure. China had 4.838 million 5G base stations and 1.204 billion 5G subscriptions by the end of 2025.
The China-Africa cooperation framework increasingly places digital transformation alongside infrastructure, industrialisation, agriculture and skills development.
The 2025-2027 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation action plan provides for a China-Africa digital technology cooperation centre and 20 digital infrastructure and transformation demonstration projects.
It also identifies cooperation in 5G, smart cities, e-commerce, robotics, artificial intelligence, digital skills, technology transfer and innovation.
The plan calls for efforts to “bridge the AI and digital divide”, alongside cooperation on data security, privacy protection and responsible technology use.
For Africa, the central question is, therefore, not simply how quickly Chinese technologies can be imported, but how they can contribute to domestic productive capacity.
Nigeria illustrates the challenge. Electricity, broadband, transport, healthcare, agriculture and manufacturing remain important foundations for technology-led productivity.
Communications minister Bosun Tijani has described Nigeria’s connectivity problems as “structural”, citing years of under-investment and infrastructure constraints.
He said Project BRIDGE would provide nationwide open-access fibre infrastructure to address foundational digital gaps over the next two to five years.
China’s experience offers a broader lesson: technology has greater economic impact when it is integrated with the systems that support production and public services.
That is visible in transport, where Chinese manufacturers are combining batteries, sensors, telecommunications, software and artificial intelligence.
New-energy vehicles and intelligent transport systems increasingly form part of connected urban lifestyles.
Yadea, based in Jiangsu, has built a major international electric two-wheeler business, illustrating how batteries, electric motors and intelligent controls can support affordable mobility.
For African cities confronting congestion, transport costs and pollution, electric motorcycles and buses could form part of broader mobility strategies.
China’s experience in traditional industries provides another useful example.
In Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, Hengshun combines traditional vinegar fermentation with biotechnology, automation, digital monitoring and modern quality-control systems.
The experience shows how technology can modernise established industries without necessarily displacing traditional products or cultural identity.
For Africa’s food-processing, textile, leather, fisheries and agricultural industries, similar applications could improve quality, reduce waste, strengthen traceability and support value addition.
Water management provides another example.
In Yancheng, Fenghai combines desalination with renewable energy, storage and intelligent controls to produce freshwater from seawater.
For African coastal and water-stressed communities, the combination of renewable energy, desalination and digital management offers a potential area for adaptation.
Yancheng’s Green and Low-Carbon Science and Innovation Park demonstrates yet another feature of China’s technology ecosystem: bringing research institutions, companies, energy technologies and manufacturing together.
African countries could adapt such models by linking universities, research centres, technology firms, manufacturers and vocational institutions around specific development priorities.
Agriculture may offer one of the most immediate applications. China increasingly uses drones, sensors, satellite imagery and AI to monitor crops, manage irrigation, identify pests and optimise agricultural inputs.
At the Daizhuang Modern Agriculture Demonstration Zone in Zhenjiang, technology is combined with modern production, organic farming and integrated agricultural systems.
For Nigeria and other African economies, such technologies could support precision farming and improve decisions amid changing rainfall patterns and rising production costs.
The China-supported Giseke Irrigation Project in Rwanda illustrates how technology can be linked to physical agricultural infrastructure.
Financed by the Export-Import Bank of China and constructed by China Geo-Engineering Corporation, the project represents an investment of about 47.5 million dollars and is designed to irrigate more than 2,600 hectares.
China’s textile industry offers a similar example of technology supporting value addition.
At Wuxi No. 1 Cotton Mill Textile Group, advanced spinning and weaving technologies are combined with digital monitoring to produce cotton yarn and fabrics at industrial scale.
Company official Zhu Ping’an said African cotton producers could improve competitiveness by addressing quality challenges and investing in production technology.
The company also operates a factory in Ethiopia, using locally produced and imported cotton, according to Zhu.
For Africa, the implication is clear: technology can help connect agricultural production with industrial processing and international value chains, provided other conditions for investment and trade are in place.
Healthcare presents another frontier. AI-assisted medical imaging, electronic records, telemedicine and connected health systems could extend specialist capabilities to underserved communities.
For African countries with shortages of specialists, digital systems could connect patients and health facilities across large geographical areas.
Education faces a similar opportunity. AI-powered learning platforms can personalise exercises, provide feedback and help teachers identify areas where students need additional support.
For Africa’s young population, digital learning could expand access to coding, engineering, robotics, data analysis and other emerging disciplines.
At the same time, automation can reduce demand for some repetitive tasks while increasing demand for engineers, technicians, software developers, data specialists and digital entrepreneurs.
African education systems, therefore, need to prepare people not only to use technology, but also to design, maintain and improve it.
Commerce is undergoing an equally profound transformation.
China’s online retail sales reached 15.97 trillion yuan (2.38 trillion dollars) in 2025, linking producers, merchants, logistics operators and consumers through increasingly sophisticated digital platforms.
For African businesses, digital commerce can widen access to customers across cities and national borders.
The opportunity is particularly relevant to the African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA, which seeks to expand intra-African trade and integrate continental markets.
China’s experience shows how digital platforms can connect production, logistics, payments and consumers. For African economies, adapting that model could help smaller enterprises reach markets beyond their immediate locations.
The environmental dimension is also important. At Jiangsu Dafeng Milu National Nature Reserve, drones, cameras, biodiversity monitoring stations and centralised data systems support wildlife conservation.
Such technologies could help African countries monitor large conservation areas, track wildlife movement and respond more quickly to environmental threats.
The Yellow Sea Wetlands Museum similarly combines conservation with digital education through immersive technologies, three-dimensional displays and dynamic monitoring systems.
Yet the expansion of AI and digital technologies also raises questions about privacy, employment, cybersecurity, accountability and the distribution of economic opportunities.
The 2025-2027 FOCAC action plan therefore places digital development alongside data security, personal privacy and responsible AI governance.
President Xi’s 2024 FOCAC address captures the broader ambition, when he stressed that on the path to modernisation, no one, and no country, should be left behind.
Nigeria is developing its own institutional response, with the Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy working towards a National AI Trust to guide AI adoption, investment and responsible innovation.
The ministry has also promoted indigenous AI capacity, research funding and digital-skills development.
Nigeria’s digital authorities are also engaging China on connectivity and technology cooperation.
In 2025, the ministry reported discussions with Chinese officials on investment cooperation in the digital economy, training opportunities and agricultural technology.
In 2026, the ministry engaged Chinese institutions in Beijing on connectivity for underserved Nigerian communities under the Nigeria Universal Communication Access Project.
Such engagements point to practical areas for China-Africa cooperation: infrastructure, skills, research, local enterprises and technology transfer.
China’s scale, however, cannot simply be reproduced elsewhere.
Its large domestic market, manufacturing base, research institutions and infrastructure created conditions for technologies to move rapidly from experimentation to mass adoption.
African economies operate under different circumstances, with varying levels of electricity access, industrial capacity, financing and institutional development.
For Nigeria, the experience points towards an integrated approach.
Reliable electricity supports broadband. Broadband enables digital businesses and public services. Manufacturing creates demand for automation, while agriculture can benefit from data and connectivity.
Transport can combine electrification with renewable energy; healthcare can combine digital systems with human expertise; and education can use AI while strengthening teachers and vocational institutions.
The objective for Africa should, therefore, not be to reproduce China’s technological landscape, but to adapt relevant technologies to African development priorities.
Observers argue that the continent can combine digital innovation with its markets, resources, young population and entrepreneurial capacity.
China’s experience provides a large-scale case study of how infrastructure, industry, innovation and skills can reinforce one another.
For Nigeria and other African countries, the challenge is to turn technological adoption into productive capacity, better public services, competitive industries and broader economic opportunities.
The real test will be whether technology helps Africans produce more, process more of their resources, trade more efficiently, access better services and create productive employment.
China’s technological revolution indeed offers lessons.
Analysts believe that the challenge for Africa is to select those lessons carefully, adapt them to local realities and build the infrastructure, institutions and human capabilities needed to make them sustainable. (NAN)
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