Africa holds a dominant share of the world’s critical minerals, yet continues to capture limited value due to structural and informational asymmetries. In From Ore to Intelligence, Enoch Antwi argues that artificial intelligence is transforming mineral exploration, valuation, and extraction—shifting power from resource ownership to data and algorithmic control. With AI-driven systems dramatically improving discovery success rates, reducing exploration timelines, and increasing asset valuation, the article highlights how control over subsurface intelligence is becoming the new frontier of economic leverage. As global demand for cobalt, copper, lithium, and other strategic minerals accelerates, Africa faces a pivotal choice: build domestic AI capacity and retain value, or risk ceding the informational premium to foreign firms. The future of resource power, the article concludes, will be defined not by who owns the ore, but by who controls the intelligence behind it.
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