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Nigeria is set to host a National Artificial Intelligence Strategy Workshop from April 15th to 18th, 2024 in Abuja.
According to the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. ‘Bosun Tijani, the workshop is a “significant step” for the country to leverage the “strategy [that] will help us deliver the priorities and implementation approach towards improving lives and growing our economy through the application of AI.”
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Tijani, in a social media post, announced that the workshop is “supported by Luminate [to] develop a co-created framework for a multi-year strategy and action plan for the research, application and adoption of AI in Nigeria. Participants at the workshop will include 120 of Nigeria’s leading researchers and startups in AI.” The Luminate is a civil society organisation.
Nigeria aims to join countries with national AI strategies
Nigeria is aiming to have a national AI strategy that will accelerate the adoption of AI across sectors. Africa’s most populous country of over 200 million plans to join other countries with national AI strategies including India, China, Japan, Malta, South Korea, Mexico, Australia,, Belgium, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, and Finland.
In all, there are about 34 countries that have adopted a national AI strategy framework, according to the Brookings. They include Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and the U.A.E. Others are the U.K., Uruguay, Canada, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Austria, France, Germany and the U.S.
Nigeria established the National Centre for AI and Robotics (NCAIR) in 2020 to affirmed its commitment to AI. It is seeking to deepen its engagement of AI.
Strategy will help coordinate and harness power of AI for national development – Tijani
“One of the earliest initiatives from the start of my term in office, was to properly define and outline a comprehensive Artificial Intelligence Strategy for Nigeria. The need to coordinate and harness the power of AI for national development is a critical element in our journey towards the use of technology to accelerate productivity in our country,” said Tijani.
Adding: “AI offers us the opportunity to leverage technology to solve some of our most complex and urgent challenges in education, agriculture, healthcare and so much more.
“Recognising the incredible depth of talent of Nigerian descent scattered all over the world working in the field of AI, we very quickly looked to identify some of these leading researchers and started to engage them in a number of our initiatives.
“From the National Artificial Intelligence Research Scheme (NAIRS) to the Fourth Industrial Revolution Technology Application (4IRTA) project, we have worked with these talented academics and entrepreneurs towards the mainstreaming of the application of AI in our everyday lives.”
A 2024 report by Technopedia listed the US as No.1 AI country with almost 60% of “top tier” AI researchers and $249 billion in private funding. China and the UK round out the top three, with Israel and Canada following closely behind. Nigeria plans to be a leading AI hub in Africa.
