This is sometimes called "leapfrogging" and one example was cell phone technology (when countries that came later to the game adopted newer and better standards).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leapfrogging

Surely he must mean implementation in the overall infrastructure. From my time in America is seems that overhauling systems is not popular policy at all. Unfortunately as an African myself there are larger issues than AI that need to be solved before that can even be in the periphery of something near that statement.

Two examples:

- Kenya has a dominant electronic currency, M-Pesa

- South Korea rapidly developed into a globally competitive developed country, despite being poor in the middle of the 20th century (same applies to Japan, just slightly less so).