Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy Dr. Bosun Tijani has announced a fundamental resuscitation of the dormant National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR) to aid in revitalizing the country’s digital terrain in accordance with an important decision. The refurbished center seeks to upgrade the country’s research and development endeavors in rapidly advancing technologies, such as AI, Robotics, and IoT.
NCAIR relaunch comes right after the former Minister for Communication and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami, claimed that the center was launched by President Muhammadu Buhari. Although there are different arguments, the goal is still the same; that is, the conversion of the country into technological resources and the advancement of innovation in the digital domain.
Led by Dr. Bosun Tijani, the NCAIR has also seen significant enhancements, and it is sponsored by the technology giant Cisco. At the moment, the capacity of the center has grown, having over 2,500 virtual CPUs that were provided as well as one petabyte of storage. The reforms are targeted at empowering local researchers and start-ups and easing AI implementation in different sectors of the government.
Moreover, NCAIR will oversee the management of new computational infrastructure for national interest projects and academic research. Moreover, an AI laboratory has been established to boost AI research projects in the state and enterprise, which enhances cooperation and innovation in this area.
Major development is the establishment of AI hubs and pods at various locations in the country, allowing remote access to the NCAIR’s high-performance computing power. This project is aimed at decentralizing technology innovation, making it borderless, and encouraging participation from all areas while promoting inclusivity in the AI ecosystem of Nigeria.
Furthermore, NCAIR has embraced open reporting and scholarly publication of all undertaken research projects to facilitate accountability and knowledge sharing within the research community. The reemergence of NCAIR also aligns with the achievements of the National AI Workshop of the Ministry, which was a consensus-building platform for the AI strategy of Nigeria. One of the achievements was when the country revealed its first Multilingual GPT-2-like Language Model, which was a milestone in linguistic research and development.
Nigeria has not only been able to align its National AI Strategy after four days of collaborative work with over 120 AI experts but has also created several key relationships which are all aimed at enhancing the country’s AI journey. This progress shows Nigeria’s determination to benefit from technological innovation as the growth and development that sustains.
This article first appeared as a press release in the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy.
