Google opens Africa’s first AI Research Centre in Accra

American multinational technology company, Google on Wednesday, April 10 opened its Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Centre in Accra, Ghana.

The AI centre which is the first to be opened in Africa will gather Machine Learning researchers and engineers in Accra to facilitate local AI development.

Head of Google AI Accra, Moustapha Cisse addressing the media at the event said the aim of establishing the AI Research Centre in Accra is to meet the increasing interest in machine learning research across Africa.

According to him, Google will collaborate with local universities, research organisations and policy makers to deploy AI in solving challenges in the healthcare sector, agriculture, education and other sectors to make things easy and accessible.

“We’ll work and collaborate with institutions across the continent; the team itself is very international; it’s already about 10 people coming from more than 12 different countries; Africans and non-Africans as well so we’re looking forward to collaborate with African Institutions. Our goal is to advance the frontiers of this science so we expect to have a scientific impact but also we expect to through collaborations with different institutions working on local challenges, have an impact to be on our field by applying the technology to agriculture to health and to other areas where it can be also,” he said.

Accra is now joining the list of Google AI centres which includes Paris, Zurich, Tokyo, Beijing, Montreal, Toronto, Seattle, Cambridge/Boston, Tel Aviv/Haifa, New York and San Franciso.

Meet Google’s AI team in Ghana

A team of 10 from various countries consisting of software engineers and research scientists –from Senegal, Uganda, USA, Israel, Nigeria, Ireland, Canada, UK and Lesotho have joined their counterparts in Ghana to work at the centre and apply their knowledge in AI to solve Africa’s problems.

Some of the team members speaking at the event expressed their excitement in coming to Ghana stressing on the need to use their knowledge-base in AI to help institutions in Africa for development.

According to them, they will use AI to improve the health of people and plants, and also use it as an opportunity to improve access to information.