Ayantola Alayande is a Researcher at the Global Center on AI Governance, where he works on issues of international cooperation in AI policymaking and governance, AI development in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), compute governance, AI Security, state-led AI governance in Africa, and AI security. His broader interests span the geopolitics/geoeconomics of emerging technologies, global governance, technology and industrial policy, Africa-in-major-power-competition, and digital methods/media. His writings have appeared in several notable research outlets, including Nature, the Atlantic Council, The Productivity Institute, The Productivity Monitor, the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, Research ICT Africa, among others.
Ayantola holds graduate degrees in public policy and international development, respectively, from the KDI School of Public Policy and the University of Edinburgh, and is currently a PhD candidate in AI Geopolitics and Governance at the University of Oxford’s Department of International Development (ODID), where he is researching approaches to sovereignty in the AI value chain of emerging power nations. He has previously worked in research and consulting roles at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, Kantar UK, Research ICT Africa (RIA), and Dataphyte.