In a bid to position Nigeria as a guru in artificial intelligence (AI) advancement across the continent, the government has rolled out Nigeria’s inaugural multilingual large language model (LLM) under the purview of the Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy. Dr. Bosun Tijani, Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, announced this landmark initiative on Friday, April 19, attributing its genesis to a four-day AI workshop convened in Abuja, the nation’s capital, earlier that week.
Dr. Tijani highlighted the collaborative efforts of key entities such as the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), the National Centre for AI and Robotics (NCAIR), global tech firm DataDotOrg, and indigenous AI startup Awarritech in the development of this groundbreaking AI tool. He emphasized that the LLM, besides being proficient in English, would be trained in five additional low-resource languages to ensure broader linguistic inclusivity within existing datasets for AI solution creation.
Furthermore, the minister revealed that the project would benefit from the support of over 7,000 fellows participating in the Ministry’s Three Million Technical Talent (3MTT) program, underscoring a concerted commitment to fostering technological innovation and talent development within Nigeria’s burgeoning AI ecosystem.
“After an exciting week of co-creation with over 120 ArtificiaI Intelligence experts, we not only have an initial draft of our National AI Strategy, we also announced some significant developments and partnerships that will lead us towards accelerating the development of AI in Nigeria,” Tijani said.
“Also, a partnership between 21st Century Technologies, and the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR) to accelerate the development of Artificial Intelligence projects of national interest.”
Tijani also revealed that a significant boost to the National AI Strategy came in the form of $3.5 million in seed funding, generously provided by a consortium of stakeholders. Among the contributors are prominent entities such as UNDP, UNESCO, Meta, Google, Microsoft, Luminate, Lagos Business School, Data Science Nigeria, and NITDA, along with various other organizations affiliated with the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, both domestically and internationally.
In an earlier announcement, NITDA had disclosed a $220,000 grant along with an all-expenses-paid training program based in Silicon Valley, USA. The agency underscores its overarching objective of leveraging information and communication technology (ICT) as a transformative tool within higher education institutions, aimed at bolstering the nation’s educational framework.
