At its heart is an attempt to move the relationship between Africa and China beyond conventional trade and infrastructure into artificial intelligence, digital creativity, intellectual property and technology-driven enterprise. For a continent with one of the world’s youngest populations and a rapidly expanding digital economy, that distinction matters. Increasingly, its entrepreneurs and creatives want to build products, own intellectual property and participate in the global value chain. Its digital cooperation proposals include support for communication infrastructure, cross-border connectivity, 5G deployment, e-commerce, artificial intelligence and digital skills development. China’s existing digital cooperation framework with Africa includes infrastructure development, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, e-commerce, mobile payments, cybersecurity and digital capacity building.