Tech giant Google has announced a $37 million initiative to accelerate artificial intelligence development across Africa. The funding will support research and projects in areas such as agriculture, health, education and local language technologies. The announcement came during the launch of a new AI community centre in Accra, Ghana, which will serve as a hub for training, collaboration and experimentation.
Among the major initiatives is the AI Collaborative for Food Security, which aims to improve hunger detection and crop resilience by connecting researchers and non-profits. Google also plans to launch a financing platform for startups using AI to solve challenges in farming, healthcare and schooling.
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Through its philanthropic arm, the company has committed $7 million to expand AI education in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Ghana. A further $3 million will go to Masakhane, a tech collective working to advance AI tools in over 40 African languages.
Two South African institutions—the African Institute of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence and the Wits Machine Intelligence and Neural Discovery Institute—will each receive $1 million in research grants. Ghana’s communications minister welcomed the move, urging citizens to harness AI to tackle issues like flooding and traffic.
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