The federal government has launched the Nigeria AI scaling hub (NAISH) to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) across public institutions.
The launch is backed by a $7.5 million commitment from the Gates Foundation.
Bosun Tijani, minister of communications, innovation and digital economy, unveiled the initiative on Friday in Abuja, describing it as a major step towards building a globally competitive AI ecosystem.
He said the three-year $7.5 million support from the Gates Foundation will provide technical assistance, computing infrastructure, policy support and strategic partnerships to help move AI innovations beyond pilot stages to nationwide deployment.
“The initiative is designed to bridge the gap between government institutions and Nigerian AI innovators by supporting the large-scale deployment of proven AI solutions,” the minister said.
Tijani said the government’s ambition extends beyond developing AI applications to creating an ecosystem capable of producing globally competitive technology companies.
“The only technology that has been extremely successful in Nigeria is financial technology, and many people assume it was simply because of brilliant founders,” he said.
“That was not the case. The success of fintech came from coordinated investments involving government, regulators, financial institutions, academia and development partners.”
Tijani said the government intends to replicate the same ecosystem model for AI, particularly in healthcare, education, and agriculture.
“The day we build the same kind of open ecosystem for health and education is the day we begin to see AI innovations that are unique to Nigeria and capable of solving our own development challenges,” he said.
The minister said innovators participating in the programme would receive free access to the national AI computing infrastructure during the initial phase, significantly reducing the cost of training AI models.
