The Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC) on Thursday highlighted Africa’s promising potential to build a global industrial hub for semiconductor manufacturing thanks to the continent’s vast mineral resources, young workforce, and growing reform-oriented policies.
This came in an article published in the new issue of the IDSC specialized magazine “Industrial Horizons” that features a set of analytical articles on the future of industry.
The article elaborated that semiconductor chips are a cornerstone of the modern digital economy, because they are integral to the production of smartphones, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence applications, and military technology.
It added that the industry is undergoing rapid transformations driven by rising global demand, geopolitical shifts, and countries’ efforts to diversify supply chains.
Africa is home to nearly one-third of the world’s critical minerals, including cobalt, copper, graphite, and silicon—key inputs for semiconductor production. However, the continent’s current contribution remains largely limited to the extraction phase, accounting for less than 1% of the global semiconductor market, with a noticeable absence from higher value-added manufacturing stages, the article read.
The article explained that the semiconductor value chain consists of three main stages; mineral extraction, design and fabrication, and finally assembly, testing, and packaging.
Africa holds a strong position in the first stage due to its abundant resources, but is still in the early stages of building capabilities in the second and third stages, owing to limited research infrastructure, insufficient investment, and skills shortages.
It added that the assembly, testing, and packaging stage represents a more realistic entry point for Africa to strengthen its role in global semiconductor supply chains, given its lower cost compared to advanced fabrication, its reliance on skilled yet cost-competitive labor, and the potential to locally source some packaging materials.
