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Dr Tijani’s disclosure came after a four-day AI workshop held in Abuja. The project is to be executed in collaboration with global tech company DataDotOrg, Nigerian AI firm Awarritech, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the National Centre for AI and Robotics (NCAIR). In his comments on the development, the minister said that the LLM will be trained in selected languages, to strengthen the representation of other languages besides ‘standard’ English in the existing array of AI solutions.
“The LLM will be trained in five low-resource languages and accented English to ensure stronger language representation in existing data sets for developing artificial intelligence solutions,”he said.
“The project will also be supported by over 7,000 fellows from the 3MTT Nigeria program.”
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Large Language Models (LLMs) are at the foundation of the functionality of Artificial Intelligence (AI). When trained with enormous amounts of data, they can ‘understand’ and respond to Natural (human) Language. This supports AI’s ability to effectively ‘communicate’ with human users. The multilingual Large Language Model (LLM) is just one outworking of a broader plan by the Federal Government. Following the AI workshop in Abuja, Dr. Tijani also disclosed that Nigeria has drafted its preliminary National AI Strategy. According to him, this was the result of collaboration between 120 AI experts. Dr. Tijani further said that the National AI Strategy had received seed funding worth $3.5 million from various sources, including UNESCO, UNDP, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Luminate, Lagos Business School, Data Science Nigeria, and NITDA, among others.
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Meanwhile, the United States of America (USA), through its Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy, Arthur Brown, has promised that the US will be supporting Nigeria’s efforts at developing and deploying AI for local use. He indicated his country’s readiness to assist with aspects of Nigeria’s AI project, ranging from infrastructure and innovation to research and talent development.
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