To strategically position Nigeria in the frontline of current global drive towards artificial intelligence (AI) development, the Federal Government has secured $3.5 million seed fund for Nigeria’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) strategy implementation from development and other independent partners.
The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, made this disclosure on Friday at the closing ceremony of a four-day international workshop on National Artificial Intelligence and Strategy for Nigeria held in Abuja
The minister expressed optimism that with a collective pool of resources by both local and foreign partners, the outlook for Nigeria to achieve development with the AI strategy remained bright, adding that the country needs the strategy now to prepare the citizens ahead for a competitive future as AI will come to Nigeria same way it will come to other countries globally.
He listed some of the funding agencies as UNDP, UNESCO, Meta, Google, Microsoft, Luminate, Lagos Business School, Data Science Nigeria, NITDA, agencies within the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, among other international and local partners.
He clarified: “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.
“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”, the minister added.
Tijanni explained that the Federal Government had advocated for the establishment of African Council for Artificial Intelligence (AI) in view of the urgent need to ensure that the deployment of Artificial Intelligence in Africa is shaped by uniform regulations and market prospects.
He said: “We already have same markets and trade regulations within Africa and in some sub-region, it is important the future of AI in Africa follow same pattern for ease of transactions, shared experiences and mutual opportunities and benefits.”
