May 2026 saw Zimbabwe’s AI trajectory shift from policy into everyday life. Cameras appeared at key traffic intersections, AI integrated directly into agriculture, and artists began questioning creativity as AI-generated gospel tracks went viral overnight. The National AI Strategy (2026–2030), launched in March, continued to provide a framework for developments spanning public infrastructure, private sector investment, international partnerships, and emerging regulatory questions. AI is moving into practical deployment, and this edition tracks those developments across eight stories. Zimbabwe rolls out Al traffic cameras in Harare and Bulawayo Zimbabwe has begun deploying AI-powered traffic cameras in Harare and Bulawayo as part of the Smart Zimbabwe 2030 Master Plan. The rollout, valued at US$100 million over five years, involves Chinese technology companies Huawei and Hikvision and forms part of a broader smart city initiative. The system uses Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology, which can read both old and new Zimbabwean plate formats with up to 98% accuracy under standard conditions. The enforcement process is designed as a hybrid system: camera footage is transmitted to the ZRP National Command Centre, where a human officer verifies matches against the Central Vehicle Registry before any fine is issued. Payment enforcement is linked to existing touchpoints such as ZINARA licence renewals and police roadblocks. Similar systems deployment in South Africa have historically struggled due to nonpayment of fines and system backlogs. By contrast, Kenya’s AI traffic pilot in Nairobi was suspended in March 2026 due to public and legal pushback regarding constitutional violations. This deployment will be a true test of digital adoption as Zimbabwe is heavily reliant on physical paperwork and our transport sector is still categorised as informal. Civil society organisations, including the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission and MISA Zimbabwe, have noted that deployments of this nature require careful consideration of privacy rights under Section 57 of the Constitution, and have called for clear data governance frameworks to accompany the rollout. This new rollout provides an opportunity for mass surveillance and civil liberties must be protected. Government and Partners Accelerate Al Adoption in Rural Agriculture Zimbabwe has identified agriculture as a priority sector under its National AI Strategy, with government ministries, universities, development partners and private sector actors collaborating on initiatives to improve productivity and expand digital inclusion in rural communities. Applications under development include AI-assisted crop disease detection, climate-adaptive weather forecasting tools, and digital market access platforms for smallholder farmers. A 2026 policy brief from the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNUINWEH), titled ‘Digital Agriculture and AI for Climate-Resilient Smallholder Farming in Zimbabwe, ‘ provides evidence and policy recommendations to support the country’s agricultural transformation agenda for the 2026–2030 period. The brief draws on findings from across subSaharan Africa and highlights the importance of deliberate policy design, targeted investment, and safeguards to address structural inequalities, especially those related to gender, income, geography and digital literacy. Successful adoption of AI policies and implementation hinges upon ensuring that digital transformation does not reinforce existing inequalities but delivers equitable outcomes. Existing tools, platforms, and opportunities must benefit those who need them the most. Zimbabwe and France Deepen ICT Cooperation with Focus on Al Zimbabwe’s ICT Minister Tatenda Mavetera hosted the French Ambassador to Zimbabwe for highlevel discussions centred on digital transformation, AI development and innovation-led growth. Zimbabwe formally presented its AI Readiness Assessment Methodology Report and National Artificial Intelligence Strategy (2026–2030) during the discussions. The French side acknowledged ongoing support for digital inclusion, including laptop donations to gender-based violence survivors in Epworth and capacity-building support through partnerships involving Simone AI and Digital Africa. The engagement adds France to a growing list of bilateral technology partners that includes China and the United Arab Emirates. Each partnership focuses on a distinct area: China on digital infrastructure, the UAE on coding and skills development, and France on AI readiness and digital inclusion. Zimbabwe’s National AI Strategy identifies international cooperation as a key enabler of its implementation goals. Girls in ICT Day 2026: Zimbabwe Reaffirms Commitment to Gender Inclusion in Al Zimbabwe marked the International Girls in ICT Day 2026 with commemorations held at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Bulawayo. ICT Minister Mavetera addressed attendees under the theme ‘AI for Development: Girls Shaping the Digital Future, ‘ affirming that Zimbabwe’s digital transformation agenda depends on the full inclusion of girls and women in AI, robotics, cybersecurity and software engineering. The event forms part of a broader series of government-led and civil society initiatives aimed at addressing gender gaps in the technology sector. Zimbabwe’s National AI Strategy includes gender inclusion as a cross-cutting priority, and the Ministry of ICT has been actively promoting girls’ participation in coding and digital skills programmes as part of the country’s broader Digital Skills Program. In Africa, calls for girls to ‘take centre stage’ are a recurring feature of tech sector events, yet representation in AI and ICT programmes at tertiary level remains low. Structural barriers such as school dropout rates, STEM access gaps, and cost of devices, need to be solved by concrete targets, funding commitments, and accountability mechanisms Zimbabwe’s Music Industry Navigates Al-generated Content and Copyright Questions Zimbabwean musicians, producers and arts administrators gathered for a panel discussion hosted by the US Embassy in Harare to explore the implications of AI for the local music industry. Participants described AI as both a practical creative tool and a source of concern around authenticity and rights protection. AI-assisted music tracks have begun circulating on local social media and streaming platforms, prompting debate about disclosure, attribution and compensation. Zimbabwe’s Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act was designed before generative AI and does not address questions of AI-generated content. ZIMURA, the body responsible for music rights administration, is currently under interim administration following a directive from the Ministry of Justice as part of broader institutional reforms. Industry stakeholders have called for updated legislation and clearer regulatory guidance as AI tools become more widely available to local creators. While these conversations are important, it is time for Zimbabwe’s arts sector to

July was a month of positioning. Even as fresh national data laid bare how uneven Zimbabwe’s digital foundation remains, the country was being talked up on international stages as a future hub for responsible AI. The month’s developments include the release of the 2025 National ICT survey, a high-profile AI and cybersecurity retreat in Victoria Falls, a renewed international partnership with Australia, the first practical test of the National AI Strategy through the AI for Impact Challenge, and two significant moves to convert regulatory frameworks into practice, in data protection and in fintech. Running through all of it was a challenge we have been tracking since our first issue: the distance between the ambition set out in strategy and the everyday access that will determine whether any of it reaches ordinary Zimbabweans. National ICT Survey Charts a Mobile-First, Computer-Poor Economy The 2025 ICT Access by Households and Use by Individuals Survey, jointly produced by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZIMSTAT) and the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ), released on 20 July 2026, shows household internet access climbing to 75.5% from 50.1% in 2020. The survey covered 9,245 households across all ten provinces with a 91.3% response rate. Mobile phones now reach 96.4% of households, and 92% of internet-using households connect through mobile broadband, confirming a decisively mobile-first economy. But household computer ownership fell to 11.2%, down from 14.2% five years earlier, with a stark urban–rural split: 21.2% of urban households own a computer against just 4.7% in rural areas. ICT Minister Tatenda Mavetera framed the trajectory as deliberate, describing a “mobile-first, computer-enabled” approach, alongside a push to locally manufacture devices including laptops, and a target to equip all national digital initiatives with devices by 2027. The findings of this survey are refreshingly candid about declining access to technology beyond the mobile phone. Near-universal mobile ownership is a genuine achievement, but a digital economy accessed almost entirely through smartphones positions citizens primarily as consumers. The declining computer-ownership figure matters because the government’s own ambition, repeated at every AI event in recent months, is for Zimbabweans to build rather than merely use AI. You cannot train models, write production code, or run data infrastructure from a handset. That 4.7% rural computer-ownership figure quantifies the scale of the divide that the government is struggling to address. We commend the commitment to local device manufacture, but manufacturing timelines and skills pipelines run in years yet the strategy’s results are expected within months. Global Executives Position Zimbabwe as “Africa’s Most Trusted Al Market” From 22 to 24 July, the American Chamber of Commerce Zimbabwe hosted the inaugural Edge of Impact Conference in Victoria Falls under the theme “Leading the Frontier in AI and Cyber Security, ” bringing together more than 60 executives, investors and policymakers. The recurring message was that Africa’s economic trajectory will be shaped less by AI itself than by the quality of leadership guiding its adoption. AI strategist and former Google executive Ted Souder, now of Quoin.ai, challenged Zimbabwe to become “Africa’s most trusted AI market, ” built on ethical deployment, strong governance and meaningful human oversight, and argued that AI should augment rather than replace workers across financial services, mining, agriculture, healthcare and business process outsourcing. “Africa’s most trusted AI market” is an appealing title, and trust built on governance and human oversight is exactly what we advocate for. But the 2025 ICT Access by Households and Use by Individuals Survey reflects gaps that we cannot ignore. The current Zimbabwean market leans heavily towards outsourcing and global digital services, selling Zimbabwean labour into other people’s AI value chains rather than building sovereign capability. Trust is earned through enforceable governance. One surest way to boldly declare this commitment is to ensure that dataprotection commitments are inspected and enforced. Zimbabwe Turns to Australia on Al Cooperation Early in July, ICT Minister Tatenda Mavetera set out cooperation with Australia across AI, digital transformation, innovation and skills development, noting that both countries now have national AI strategies, Zimbabwe’s launched in March and Australia’s in December 2025. She restated the strategy’s six pillars: talent and capacity development; infrastructure and computational sovereignty; AI adoption and service transformation; governance and regulation; research and innovation; and international collaboration. The minister stressed that citizens should not be passive consumers of AI and used the occasion to preview the AI for Impact Challenge. The continued pursuit of international partnerships is commendable, however, partnership should not be a gateway to dependency when it imports systems rather than building the local capacity to sustain them. For Zimbabwe, the true test of these partnerships will be whether they allow Zimbabwean institutions, talent and infrastructure to stand on their own once the foreign partners leave. The AI for Impact Challenge (AI4I) ran in Mutare from 27 July to 1 August, positioned as the implementation arm of the AI Grand Challenge envisaged in the National AI Strategy. It brought multidisciplinary teams together to build AI-driven solutions to local problems, and followed the government’s announcement that the National AI Charter, intended as the foundational framework for the ethical, transparent and accountable development of AI, had been finalised. Officials hailed the challenge as evidence that the strategy is moving from declaration to delivery. This development is a key step towards the beneficial implementation of the National AI Strategy. But challenges must produce working, locally relevant solutions, not just prototypes. With adequate funding and support, we should be able to trace the successes of the winning solutions. Financing, adoption, scaling and embedding of solutions into real institutions have lagged behind over the years, but we are looking forward to seeing a shift in the coming months. POTRAZ Moves Data Protection From Paper to Practice Under Regulatory Notice 2 of 2026, POTRAZ is set to begin mandatory inspections, from 1 September, of organisations that collect or process personal data, assessing compliance with the Cyber and Data Protection Act, including licensing requirements, cybersecurity measures and datagovernance practices. The move activates enforcement of a framework that has been

he adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Zimbabwe is accelerating, driven by increasingly accessible applications and tools. This June saw several landmark developments: the launch of an AI-powered platform to grade local councils, a homegrown lobola-calculator app that reached audiences as far as Japanese national television and the formal regulation of the previously informal cryptocurrency sector. The National AI Strategy (2026–2030) continued to frame developments spanning public governance, fintech, digital skills, and international partnerships Government Launches Real-time Citizen Scoring System for Local Authorities The President launched a Citizen Engagement and Scoring Platform, built by LADS Africa, a startup incubated at the Harare Institute of Technology, that lets residents grade councils across eight service areas through a 24-question survey or chatbot, with public ratings mandated to count for more than 40% of each authority’s official performance score. In a live demo, Harare scored 83% on refuse but 44–45% on water and sanitation, at which point the platform’s AI flagged water management as a systemic issue and recommended that the city explore privatisation. While the scoring system represents a significant step toward public accountability, its effectiveness hinges on the enforcement of real consequences for poor performance. The recommendation to privatise water, a fundamental human right, raises questions on two fronts, the data these models are trained on, and the explainability of how the tool arrived at that conclusion. At a time when the cost of living is high, privatising water risks pushing tariffs beyond what many households can afford. Zimbabwe and South Korea Explore Al-driven Health Financing On the sidelines of the WEF Annual Meeting of the New Champions, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube met South Korean National Assembly member Cha Jiho to discuss using AI to optimise healthcare resource allocation, proposing a formal MOU and floating the concept of “Universal Intelligence Coverage. ” This approach highlights the government’s commitment to seeking alternative revenue streams at a time when traditional donor support is declining. AI is being positioned as a way to reduce leakages and improve transparency in a strained health budget. Over the coming months, as the MOU details are finalised, it will be crucial to assess whether this partnership enhances local capability or results in the importation of foreign systems. Zim Aligns Economic Strategy to Global Trends Also at the WEF meeting in Dalian, Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube framed AI as the single biggest future driver of growth. Reporting 8.2% GDP growth in 2025, the minister attributed the success to robust performance in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, information and communication technology, wholesale trade, financial services, and insurance. He positioned AI and critical minerals as twin pillars for Zimbabwe’s economic future, with beneficiation reframing mining investment as manufacturing to justify value retention. Early this year the government suspended exports of lithium concentrates, leaning into a fast track towards the 2027 phase-out of lithium concentrate exports. This is a commendable move, but it places the government under pressure to invest in data centres, beneficiation capacity, and AI talent within investor timelines, while the economy remains constrained by power supply and skills shortages. Zim Turns to Korea for Al Strategy ICT Minister Tatenda Mavetera is seeking cooperation with South Korea in the areas of AI, digital transformation, innovation, and digital skills development. Perhaps the most telling indicator of the government’s strategy this month is that Zimbabwe engaged Korea on two separate occasions in just two weeks, first on health financing and then on AI policy. This suggests a concerted effort to leverage international partnerships as a means of strengthening local capabilities. AI governance and development rely heavily on learning from trailblazers, but this should not foster over-reliance on foreign infrastructure and investment. As with the recent developments tied to private companies, Zimbabwe will need to follow the path it has set out for itself through policy, building AI infrastructure that is independent and grounded in data localisation. InnBucks Launches Visa Card, Integrates Zim Payments Ecosystem InnBucks has extended its 3-million-user wallet into a Visa card, enabling cross-border commerce, online shopping, subscriptions, airfares, visa fees and travel spend, directly chipping at the fragmentation that has long forced Zimbabweans to juggle separate rails for local and international payments. With some local payment platforms having issues with double-billing and taxes, the Visa card can meaningfully expand access to the global digital economy for entrepreneurs, students and freelancers previously locked out by infrastructure gaps. One of the deterring factors stopping people from using these platforms is cost, and if InnBucks manages to keep costs low, this might boost numbers beyond the current 3 million users. Zimbabwe Finally Regulates the Crypto Sector The Zimbabwe government recently gazetted Statutory Instrument 99 of 2026, bringing Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) into a formal framework. The statutory instrument lays out several requirements, including registration with the Reserve Bank’s Financial Intelligence Unit, alignment with FATF standards on due diligence and the Travel Rule, mandatory local incorporation and resident directors, a US$500 annual certificate, and FIU powers to suspend non-compliant operators and levy fines up to US$50,000. For Zimbabwe, this is a substantive effort towards digital-asset governance and moves crypto out of the grey market. But the framework pointedly does not guarantee registered VASPs access to commercial banking, which remains the sector’s actual bottleneck. That is the gap between legitimacy on paper and legitimacy in practice: a licensed business that still can’t open a bank account is only half-regulated. Whether the banking sector opens its doors to vetted VASPs is the one element that will determine if S.I. 99 builds a real industry or a compliant but stranded one. Lobola Calculator Modernises Marriage Negotiations NUST graduate Courage Nyoni’s Lobola Calculator mobile app, which estimates customary brideprice from inputs like education and lineage, has passed 17,600 downloads across Africa and Europe and featured on Japan’s Nippon TV. Could this be our first step towards datafying culture? While the designer has characterised the application as a fun educational tool, the app signifies international appetite for authentically local digital products. Beyond

April marked a decisive turning point for Zimbabwe’s digital landscape. In just one month, both the private sector and the government moved simultaneously on four fronts: private-sector AI deployment, public digital infrastructure, international technology partnerships and cybersecurity governance. This momentum builds directly on the adoption of the National AI Strategy (2026– 2030) in March 2026. But the key question remains: Can the pace of ambition match the country’s capacity to implement? Econet Launches Zimbabwe’s First Dedicated AI Business Unit Econet Wireless Zimbabwe launched Econet AI on the 16th of April 2026, a standalone business unit offering products including Cassava AI Cloud (high-performance computing powered by NVIDIA GPUs) and free six-month Google Gemini access for customers from May 2026. This is the most significant private sector AI move in Zimbabwe to date. More importantly, it repositions Econet from a connectivity provider to a full-spectrum technology partner, targeting fraud detection in financial services, precision farming, predictive maintenance in mining and healthcare diagnostics. Before we celebrate, it is important to note that the Cassava AI Factory hosting the compute infrastructure sits in South Africa, not Zimbabwe. This raises immediate questions around data sovereignty. Pillar 2 of the National AI Strategy (AI Infrastructure and Computational Sovereignty) lays out ambitious localisation goals, while the Cyber and Data Protection Act [Chapter 12:07] of 2021 mandates data localisation. Will the development of Zimbabwe’s data governance framework create pressure around the dependency on offshore infrastructure? Maybe we will be able to answer that question by the end of the year. Words to remember:Data localisation – The requirement to store and process personal data within national borders.Data sovereignty – The principle that data is subject to the laws of the country where it was generated. Free Public Wi fi Goes Live Nationwide – 1,000 Hotspots Targeted by Year End Zimbabwe marked its 46th Independence Day (April 18, 2026) by switching on free public Wi-Fi hotspots nationwide. ICT Minister Tatenda Mavetera announced 409 hotspots already deployed across schools, clinics, and public spaces, with a target of 1,000 by year end. The rollout builds on an already growing connectivity base, according to POTRAZ’s 2024 annualreport. Zimbabwe had approximately 12.5 million active internet connections. In addition, the rollout is meant to complement the Digital Skills Program (a 3-year initiative launched in April 2025 covering AI, cybersecurity, and software development), supported by the United Arab Emirates’ Government Experience Program and a government-led cybersecurity initiative that has trained 3000 youths to date. The hotspot rollout has been positioned as the foundation of an AI participation economy. Can lowering costs create the conditions for homegrown developers and startups to experiment and build? Yes, but it will only work if coupled with capacity building, which the Ministry of ICT seems to be tackling aggressively. What we’ll keep an eye on for now is whether the coding programme’s graduates eventually enter the local tech ecosystem, or will they remain certified but disconnected from meaningful employment and venture creation? Infrastructure without absorption is just overhead Zimbabwe Engages China on AI Strategy Implementation The Ministry of ICT, Postal and Courier Services held discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Ding to explore cooperation in implementing Zimbabwe’s National AI Strategy (2026–2030). Talks focused on practical collaboration in building and upgrading digital infrastructure needed to support AI deployment. This confirms that China is positioned as the primary bilateral partner for Zimbabwe’s AI infrastructure buildout, a significant strategic choice with implications for technology standards, vendor selection and the terms of future infrastructure financing. Zimbabwe now has China as an infrastructure partner and the UAE as a coding and skills partner. That gives the country negotiating flexibility but also carries the risk of potential fragmentation in technical standards across its emerging AI ecosystem. Different donors often bring different architectures, data protocols, and even philosophical approaches to AI governance. We will be tracking whether this engagement yields tangible infrastructure commitments and whether those commitments align with Zimbabwe’s stated goal of computational sovereignty. National Cybersecurity Strategy Awaits Cabinet Approval as AI-Driven FraudSurges Zimbabwe is facing a real and growing cybersecurity crisis: deepfake voice cloning, automated phishing, and adaptive malware attacks are on the rise. Mobile money fraud costs the country over USD 30 million annually, and phishing attacks have risen by more than 40%. This is a major challenge that needs to be addressed as Zimbabweans become more confident in using digital finance. The good news is that the government is making strides. A National Security Operations Centre is 85% complete. In addition, the planned Zimbabwe AI Cyber Shield programme aims to train 10,000 cybersecurity professionals and establish a centralised AI-based fraud detection platform. These are essential steps, but Zimbabwe currently scores 39.85 out of 100 on the ITU’s Global Cybersecurity Index, placing it in Tier 4 (early adoption). Until the national cybersecurity strategy is formally approved and implemented, the country will remain on the long list of African nations battling implementation gaps rather than enforcement Ecocash Launches Super App, Signaling Fintech’s Next Chapter Ecocash has launched the Ecocash Super App, consolidating payments, social chat, bill splitting,and content monetisation into a single mobile platform. Developed by Sasai Fintech (part of Cassava Technologies), the app also promises a stablecoin remittances pipeline via a partnership with Circle. The content monetisation feature is particularly notable for Zimbabwe’s emerging creative economy who have long lacked local platforms to earn directly. Adoption rates for the application are a key metric to watch as the current Ecocash App is already used widely across Zimbabwe. Will users embrace the super-app logic (one portal for everything) or reject feature bloat? For now, this signals that Zimbabwe’s largest fintech player is thinking beyond payments and toward ecosystem lock-in, a classic playbook, but one that requires genuine user value to sustain Ambition vs Capacity Gaps: Zimbabwe’s Acceleration and its Limits This month’s developments signal a country in motion. Zimbabwe now has: For a country that was largely absent from continental conversations on AI five years ago, this represents a remarkable period of policy and commercial activity.