Google announces $37m investment to support AI innovation in Africa

Google Inc. has announced a $37 million investment to support artificial intelligence (AI) research, training, and innovation across Africa.

In a statement on Thursday, the tech company said the investment will cover the launch of an AI community center in Accra, Ghana, and funding for local startups, researchers, and language development projects.

As part of the package, Google said it is committing $25 million to an AI collaborative focused on food security.

The initiative, the company said, is aimed at helping African researchers and non-profits use AI tools for hunger forecasting and improving food system resilience.

The tech giant also announced $3 million in funding to the Masakhane Research Foundation to develop open-source AI tools in over 40 African languages.

To support innovation, Google said it is creating a catalytic funding initiative to assist more than 100 AI-focused startups across sectors such as health, education, and agriculture.

The initiative is expected to combine grant funding, technical support, and mentorship to help startups scale.

In Ghana, the company said it is offering 100,000 fully funded Google career certificate scholarships, noting that the programme will cover AI essentials, prompting essentials, and other tech courses — including data analytics and cybersecurity.

According to the statement, an additional $7 million will be expended on AI curriculum development, skills training, and online safety programmes in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana.

Google said it will also provide two $1 million research grants: one to the African Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (AfriDSAI) at the University of Pretoria, and another to the Wits Machine Intelligence and Neural Discovery (MIND) Institute in South Africa.

The fund is expected to support postgraduate researchers and build local capacity in foundational AI research.

James Manyika, senior vice-president at Google, said the company is committed to long-term investment in Africa’s AI ecosystem.

“Africa is home to some of the most important and inspiring work in AI today,” he said.

Yossi Matias, vice-president of engineering and research, said the support reflects the company’s belief in Africa’s talent and creativity.

Google said the latest funding announcement builds on its previous efforts to support AI tools for maternal health, wildfire detection and local language models developed in Accra and Nairobi.