AI, Virtual Production, and Africa’s Rise as a Global Media Powerhouse

As a passionate Pan-Africanist with a front-row seat to global shifts in media and entertainment consumption, production and investments, I have long believed that anyone not looking towards the African Sub-continent for investment opportunities in the media-tech and entertainment space, will ultimately miss out on the next great shift in global economic growth, and its accompanying returns.

For social entrepreneurs like myself with an impact-first outlook that’s deeply invested in social mobility and improving economic outcomes for our society’s most marginalized, the question extends beyond the obvious macroeconomic shifts, or even the capital-flushed magnets set to seize the opportunity. Instead, the more pertinent question is: who truly benefits from Africa’s coming ascent? A potential now accelerated by advancements in Artificial Intelligence, Virtual & Immersive Media, and reduced brick-and-mortar infrastructure requirements for growth in multiple sectors at the nexus of media, technology and entertainment.

This dizzying pace of transformation nicely aligns with a rapidly decentralizing global media landscape that’s shifting away from a US-centered dominance as content production budgets seek out lower-cost regions to migrate to, just as economic slowdowns, rising wages, and geopolitical tensions plague China’s once unshakable dominance as the world’s factory, making it less competitive, and seamlessly paving the way for the much touted “Rise of the Rest” that pundits have long predicted. In this shifting landscape, Africa’s emergence as a global manufacturing, technological & creative powerhouse is no longer just a possibility, it’s inevitable.

This raises the next obvious question: What infrastructure and skilled talent pool will drive this much celebrated economic renaissance? The answer lies in a combination of factors: Primarily, Africa’s well documented adeptness at leapfrogging past traditional infrastructure gaps to adopt the most efficient solutions of the day, to position itself at the forefront of transformation.

From adopting the GSM revolution in telecoms while major Western economies still grappled with CDMA, to achieving one of the world’s fastest adoption rates of mobile financial services in both urban and rural areas, the continent has set a strong precedent for utilizing advancements to shape its future trajectory.

Extending the same sensibilities to mediatech, entertainment and the creative economy as a whole, we can accelerate the pace to increased visible and measurable impact within an ecosystem possessing a well documented global appeal and market demand.

Its proven growth potential across global and local markets makes this nexus the most strategic area to capitalize on for sustained growth, for a continent on the make.

AI & Immersive Mediums of Virtual Production: Africa’s Creative Leap

Today, the media & entertainment sector in Africa generates around $4.2Bn annually, with a growth rate outpacing other sectors on the continent. Projections indicate that upwards of $30Bn of the projected $250Bn of expected global film & entertainment revenues of the next 5 years can come from Africa, if a co-ordinated deployment of certain key elements is executed.

Mainly moving fast to roll out mass upskilling initiatives across the sector, embracing advancements in AI driven Immersive Mediums of Production and Virtual Design to bypass infrastructure gaps, and empowering a skilled work-force with the requisite future-proof skill-sets to support Africa’s rise to becoming a major force in global creative economy, entertainment and media production, akin to India’s emergence as a leading player in the API and technology outsourcing markets, on the strength of its competitiveness.

Africa as a global Mecca for virtual production isn’t too far-fetched a concept, as two decades ago, few could have predicted that India would become the backbone of global software engineering, fluidly dominating the API market as it has done. A combination of workforce training, cheap labour, and favorable tax policies on technology imports, and India won.

Today, the sub-continent of Africa shares a lot of India’s advantages, and stands on the cusp of doing the same for the creative economy as the world of music, fashion, film, gaming, art, advertising, design, and events continue to rapidly converge. Driven by the rise of AI and virtual media, extended and augmented reality (XR) and (AR) are transforming how audiences experience and consume entertainment globally.

What once seemed like distinct creative sectors are now merging into a singular, immersive ecosystem where digital and physical realities blend seamlessly. This presents the opportunity to build cheaper tech-centered infrastructure that collapses these sectors into one cohesive park that drives growth while expanding Africa’s influence at this nexus of AI and Virtual media, over the next decade.

The attending relevance and growing influence of which will deliver Africa a seat at the metaverse table, and at the minimum, American Spatial Designers can stop passing off Nairobi as Lagos, Nigeria, in Games and blockbusters.

Nigeria as a tested creative nerve center of the continent presents a formidable starting point for the AI-powered transition that is set to power the coming progress. It must therefore lean on the existing advantages of its thriving cultural relevance globally, and the opportunities it presents, to lead in Policy, infrastructure and mass up-skilling initiatives that ignite the transformation. Embarking on this trajectory offers Nigeria untapped knock-on benefits worth exploring:

• • The nature of immersive media lends itself to consistent upskilling, not requiring any prior degree. This will serve to empower large sections of creative-minded members of the massive NEET population (Not in Education Employment or Training).
• • Demographic Advantage – So much has been written both on, and off the continent about Nigeria’s 240 million strong population, and its 18.1 median age, similar to the continent at large. Barring a nuclear event or an asteroid striking Earth, nothing is going to save the Global North, Western Europe, and most of East Asia from the demographic time bomb that is the ongoing population decline.
• • The opportunities of AI, Virtual Design, and Immersive skills, and their potential to give Africa a seat at the metaverse table are crucial. Due to our absence at the table, the metaverse, like other platforms before it, is being coded with biases that will ultimately undercut Africans. The biases embedded in current technologies have already cost the continent billions in revenue. In the metaverse, the stakes are even higher, it won’t just be about money, but the potential erasure of a thousand years of cultural identity and the loss of state autonomy. Building a generation of young Africans skilled in virtual design and metaverse architecture is as vital to sovereignty today as maintaining a standing army.
• • FX Revenue: The biggest opportunity lies outside the West as it seeks cheaper, in emerging markets where talent is abundant, costs are lower, immersive media infrastructure investments can yield exponential returns. Africa, with its young, tech-savvy population and deep well of storytelling traditions, is the perfect incubator for this shift.
• • Buying power: economies are built by people, Africa’s potential as a producer, as well as a consuming market, is itself trending upwards, with growing Intra-continental trade policies & new infrastructure set to drive free movement of people, goods and services.
• • Socio-Political awareness: The data is clear on the changing trends of leadership which will no doubt come full circle within the coming decade, in Africa. GenZ, millennials & the disregard for all things trapped in the 2010s means accelerated rates of AI adoption. If history has taught us anything, It is that the innovators, and investors who take the boldest steps in pioneering ventures that have shifted entire ecosystems to new levels of efficiency and profitability, always reap monumental rewards when the dust of doubt settles, at which point they’re tagged lucky. Seeing as my entire career has been a profitable exercise in generating my own luck, I’m fully vested in this trajectory, and heartily invite like-minded experts & investors at the nexus of media, technology and the creative economy to join the lucky list of the coming decade.

Our To Do List?

• Champion investments in AI, Immersive infrastructure & Virtual Volumes. 
• Build Public-Private Partnerships targeted to MediaTech Growth & Sustainability
• Drive capacity building initiatives that expand Africa’s AI & metaverse-skills talent pool.
• Integrate cross-sector collaboration. Bringing together tech, film, gaming, music, fashion, art, and Ai industries, to create a unified ecosystem that accelerates the pace to impact. 

The African creative economy is at an inflection point, and the AI Powered Immersive Medium is the gateway to its global breakthrough, possessing the power to democratize knowledge and earnings across multiple sectors to generate high-value jobs that are tradeable to the needs of the global market.

This will serve to redefine Africa’s role in global entertainment, metaverse architecture and storytelling, and as the global North actively transitions to Web3 and a metaverse-driven future that Africa cannot escape, ignorance of its transformative force will not shield us from the costs and fall outs that come with being left out in the cold to play catchup.

About Delmwa Deshi-Kura

Delmwa Deshi-Kura is an impact filmmaker and media executive with extensive experience working with some of the world’s most recognizable global media brands, including Viacom, Warner Bros. Discovery Communications, and Multichoice’s M-Net Africa.

A narrative change leader and development communication (DevComm) strategist, DDK is the CEO of DelMedia Productions and the founder of Velocity Studios, a Pan-African media tech company leveraging advancements in game engine technology and AI to address media infrastructure gaps across the continent.

A passionate Pan-Africanist, her expertise extends to government relations and cross-sector partnerships. She has served in multiple technical advisory roles to state governments and consults on impact assessment for various national institutions.

DDK is also a board advisor, global speaker, and moderator, with a decade of speaking engagements at the United Nations General Assembly, the United Nations Conference on the Status of Women, Discop, AFRIFF, TED, and the annual Film & TV CEOs Conference in Mauritius, among others.

Sponsored Content

The post AI, Virtual Production, and Africa’s Rise as a Global Media Powerhouse appeared first on BellaNaija - Showcasing Africa to the world. Read today!.