When the Pentagon labeled Anthropic a supply-chain risk after it refused to support military uses such as autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance, the move was meant to hurt the company. Instead, it appears to have strengthened it – the paradox of pressure and learnings for Africa

Since the standoff began, Anthropic says its annualized revenue has risen from about $9 billion at the end of 2025 to more than $30 billion. Paid subscriptions more than doubled, enterprise customers spending at least $1 million annually rose past 1,000, and the Claude app briefly topped Apple’s download charts. Anthropic also launched Project Glasswing, a major cybersecurity initiative with partners including AWS, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Cisco. Meanwhile, OpenAI, despite announcing its own Pentagon partnership, saw ChatGPT uninstalls jump 295% day over day during the same period, while Claude downloads rose 51%. 

Several recent analyses suggest that weeks of U.S.–Israeli military pressure have not weakened the Iranian system; in fact, Reuters noted the conflict“could leave Tehran stronger,” highlighting the regime’s continued ability to absorb external pressure while maintaining influence over regional security dynamics and signaling newly-found leverage around the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of global oil supply transits.

These episodes illustrate a recurring pattern: pressure intended to constrain an actor can instead strengthen it, deepen internal cohesion, and expand its negotiating leverage.

There is a lesson here for Africa: The paradox of pressure and learnings for Africa

The continent has lagged on many previous indices. And development aid, which Africa has benefited from over the last few decades, is shrinking, thanks to fiscal pressures across the Global North while the project-based delivery model long used across the Global South is increasingly viewed as fragmented, transactional, and misaligned with national priorities.

For African governments and institutions, this shift creates a real opportunity. Africa remains underrated in global capital allocation, in part because investors still view the continent through the lens of conflict, underperformance, macro volatility, and infrastructure gaps. Those concerns are not imagined: violent conflict continues to weigh on parts of Sudan, the Horn, the Sahel, and other fragile zones, while many economies have only recently begun to stabilize after a prolonged inflation shock. 

Yet that is only half the picture. Africa also has one of the world’s largest emerging economic arenas through the AfCFTA, a market of about 1.4 billion people with a combined GDP of around $3.4 trillion. It holds a substantial share of the minerals increasingly central to digital and energy infrastructure – including over 50% of global cobalt, roughly 48% of manganese, and more than 20% of natural graphite reserves – while also combining a young population, rising digital adoption, and growing policy attention on AI, cloud, and connectivity. 

In our last edition, we noted that geopolitical fragmentation strengthens the case for digital sovereignty and regional resilience, and we saw the industry rally around this theme. But sovereignty is not built on policy declarations alone. It depends on coordination between regulators, operators, financiers, and governments acting in concert across borders.

If African states use this moment to align around cross-border infrastructure corridors, sovereign cloud frameworks, regional power strategies, and digital trade rules, what currently looks like underdevelopment can become a strategic advantage.

The ongoing meeting of the West Africa Telecommunications Regulators Assembly (WATRA) in Togo provides a timely opportunity to begin that shift. Beyond dialogue, the region needs practical alignment on cross-border fiber corridors, coordinated spectrum planning, roaming frameworks, infrastructure-sharing enforcement, and regional data-hosting standards that support sovereign cloud development. Progress on tackling infrastructure vandalization, harmonizing right-of-way policies, developing shared infrastructure databases, expanding ASN adoption, and incentivizing traffic localization through IXPs would immediately strengthen West Africa’s digital resilience.

Beyond press coverage, the Secretariat should publish a formal communiqué outlining agreed priorities, required actions, and implementation timelines so progress can be tracked transparently across member states. If approached strategically, the Togo session could help move the region from parallel national connectivity strategies toward a coordinated West African digital infrastructure market capable of attracting hyperscale cloud regions, data center investment, and distributed AI infrastructure.