The Nigeria Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy has launched the country’s first multilingual large language model (LLM).
Nigeria’s Communications Minister, Dr. Bosun Tijani, announced on Friday, April 19 after the conclusion of a four-day AI workshop held in Abuja.
Details
According to Tijani, the launch of the AI tool was facilitated by a collaboration involving Nigerian AI firm Awarritech, global tech company DataDotOrg, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), and the National Centre for AI and Robotics (NCAIR).
What They’re Saying
The Minister stated “The LLM will be trained in five low-resource languages and accented English to ensure stronger language representation in existing data sets for the development of artificial intelligence solutions. The project will also be supported by over 7,000 fellows from the 3MTT Nigeria program,”
Digging Deeper
Tijani added that following four days of collaborative work involving over 120 artificial intelligence experts, Nigeria produced an initial draft of its National AI Strategy and unveiled notable advancements and collaborations aimed at propelling the country’s AI development forward.
21st Century Technology will be funding the purchase of GPUs to enhance national computing capacity. These resources will aid local researchers, startups, and government entities in AI projects housed at the GBB Data Centre in the FCT.
The Big Picture
Tijani revealed that the country’s National AI Strategy has received $3.5 million in seed funding from interested partners. Foreign and local partners support the funding, including UNDP, UNESCO, Meta, Google, Microsoft, Luminate, Lagos Business School, Data Science Nigeria, NITDA, and other agencies under the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy.
It includes $1.5 million in direct funding and an additional $2 million invested by 21st Century Technologies into the pilot program.
Source: Cointelegraph
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