In February and March 2026, Google made two distinct African language AI moves — the WAXAL open speech dataset for 21 languages and AI Overviews for 13 African languages in Search. Together they define what tech companies think African AI localisation looks like. The gap between 13 and 2,000 is the story.
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Who Really Controls WAXAL? The AI Sovereignty Question Google’s African Dataset Doesn’t Answer
WAXAL gives African universities data ownership — but who controls the computational infrastructure? An analysis of AI sovereignty in Africa.