Weaponized interdependence (WI), or the exploitation of networked asymmetries for strategic advantage, has come to dominate the strategic thinking of the European Union (EU), China, and the United States (US). Declaring the importance of cyber capacity building (CCB) as a strategic tool, they have each invested heavily in the digital development of network ‘peripheries’—especially African states. Conventional wisdom holds that cyber capacity building projects build resilience against networked asymmetries and thus reduce the recipient’s vulnerability to WI risks. Given that the EU, US, and China have allegedly weaponized interdependence for their own advantage in cyberspace, it seems disadvantageous for them to fund programmes aimed at reducing opportunities for WI gains. How do these powerful donors perceive CCB investments as shaping their strategic advantage? Building a rational choice model, the paper argues that, under supply-side competitive pressures, CCB projects are strategically useful for reconfiguring networked asymmetries in the donor’s favour. This logic is reflected in the current rollout of American, Chinese, and EU CCB initiatives for African states. Therefore, extant scholarship has underestimated how ‘networked peripheries’ have emerged as central sites of global geopolitical competition, with CCB programmes serving as tools for shaping the normative and structural conditions for strategic advantage.