Only one African country operates a commercial nuclear reactor. Egypt is building one. A growing group of countries are in various stages of IAEA milestones preparation.
The problem: announcements about these programs are scattered across government websites, IAEA press releases, and industry media. There's no neutral, cited, machine-readable source that ties it all together.
So I built one.
What AfrPowerOS is
AfrPowerOS is a free, open dataset tracking every African country's civilian nuclear-energy programme. It covers:
- Programme phase: Exploring, Preparing, Under Construction, Operating
- IAEA milestone status: which infrastructure issues are addressed
- Regulators and implementing agencies
- Planned capacity in GW
- Vendors and agreements
- Research reactors
- Key events with dates
Currently covering 20 countries across the continent.
The honesty system
Every record carries a confidence label:
| Label | Meaning |
|---|---|
Verified |
Confirmed from a primary source |
Inference |
Reasonable reading of verified evidence |
Speculation |
Hypothesis; treat as unproven |
Unverified |
Reported but not yet confirmed |
Every fact has a source URL. No exceptions. If I can't source it, I mark it or leave it out.
Corrections go in as pull requests — public and reviewable.
Why Africa's nuclear programs matter
The numbers tell the story:
- ~600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa lack electricity
- Africa hosts under 2% of global data-center capacity
- Power is the binding constraint on AI infrastructure on the continent
- The countries making decisions right now are choosing infrastructure that will last 40-60 years
The tech stack
- Dataset: structured JSON with a JSON Schema validator
- Validation: Python script, zero dependencies, runs in CI
- Live site: static GitHub Pages with an interactive SVG map
- Newsletter: automated weekly digest via Buttondown API
- License: MIT (code), CC BY 4.0 (data)
git clone https://github.com/kawacukennedy/afrpoweros.git
cd afrpoweros
python3 scripts/validate.py
What's next
- Expand to all 54 African countries
- Add IAEA "19 infrastructure issues" readiness tracker per country
- Monthly data updates with changelogs Links
- Live site (https://kawacukennedy.github.io/afrpoweros/)
- GitHub (https://github.com/kawacukennedy/afrpoweros)
- Dataset (JSON) (https://github.com/kawacukennedy/afrpoweros/blob/main/data/afrpoweros.json)
- Newsletter (https://kawacukennedy.github.io/afrpoweros/newsletter.html) If something in the dataset is wrong, open an issue or send a pull request. I'd rather be corrected in public than quietly wrong.
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