<p>The growth of African science and technology has been hampared by a multitude of problems. From the continent’s late start in the race to setting up and obtaining universities with research quality fundamentals to equipment acquisition, lack of capacity, limited research and development resources and most importantly the increasing absence of international research partnerships. The lack of a strong international research partnerships for the African university and research community, the fact that most African universities and research communities are new, most of them less than 50 years in business have exberted the expected academic growth of the African university and research.</p><p>With all these problems, two solutions are fundamental: a development of a strong government backed funding policy for the African university and research community and strong international partnerships and research infrastructure to support a culture of both applied and fundamental research to drive the badly needed indigineous innovations and development of a knowledge pool of skills for development. Without these, the African university and research will continue to be deligated to the tail end of the world class universities and research communities. This paper focuses on the building of an African international research infrastructure to bring the continent beyond today’s internent to a smart future.</p>