MTN Group has accepted a call by the Nigerian government to support the collection of African language datasets aimed at powering large language models (LLMs) that will drive artificial intelligence (AI) solutions across the continent.
The pledge was announced during The Y’ello Chair Vodcast, filmed on the sidelines of the 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York. The move seeks to ensure that Africa’s 1.5 billion people are not excluded from the rapidly evolving global AI ecosystem.
The commitment follows a challenge by Bosun Tijani, Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, who urged MTN to mobilise resources for the initiative. Tijani emphasised that Africa must urgently fund academic research into its languages through public-private partnerships to avoid being sidelined in global AI development.
The minister pointed to the recent launch of the Nigerian Atlas for Languages & AI at Scale (N-ATLAS), an open-source multilingual LLM designed to digitise and preserve Nigeria’s over 500 languages. The project, driven by the federal government in collaboration with Awarri Technologies, also provides datasets that can be used to create AI-driven solutions across different sectors.
“To leapfrog AI in Africa, we need a collaborative public-private effort was urgently needed to fund the academic research into the continent’s many languages,” Tijani said.
In response, Ralph Mupita, MTN Group President and Chief Executive Officer, embraced the challenge.
“We like these kinds of partnerships. Challenge accepted,” Mupita said.
With Africa home to more than 2,000 languages, most of which remain poorly represented in AI training datasets, Mupita warned against the continent becoming a “digital underclass.”
“The outcomes we want are that people are digitally included, economically included and that they have dignity,” he said.
“This dignity point for me is very important because poverty can include all sorts of indignity, but embracing technology should take all that away.”
Mupita added that the digital economy remains Africa’s “best bet” to guarantee dignity, hope, and opportunity for its citizens.
