Nigeria’s National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR) launched a $60,000 AI fund for start-ups in partnership with Google.
The AI fund was announced by Bosun Tijani, Nigeria’s Minister of Communication, Innovation and Digital Economy while delivering the keynote address at the Global Inclusivity and AI: Africa Conference’ in Lagos on September 10.
Applications for the AI fund are open from September 10 to 25, offering 10 selected startups $13,000 each, access to Google’s AI tools, expert mentorship, and global networking opportunities.
Valid concerns have been raised on how the $13,000 grant falls short of covering the high AI development costs such as the $40,000 price tag of the upcoming Nvidia AI GPU called Blackwell
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has previously said that training ChatGPT models cost more than $100 million, while the company is reportedly seeking to raise $6.5 billion from investors.
So while it is great that the Nigerian government is taking steps to promote local AI innovation, it is important not to underestimate the financial resources required to build AI technologies.
A counter-argument could be that Africa should focus on developing AI wrapper apps that localize major AI models to fix everyday problems, rather than attempting to build the next GPT-4 or Claude 3.5 Sonnet.
Indie hackers like Pieter Levels, Danny Postma, Marc Lou, and Tony Dinh have successfully created highly profitable “AI Wrapper start-ups” so maybe indie hacking is the initial model that Africa should take to promote AI innovation.
That said, it is clear that without significant investments, visionary leadership, and strategic support, Africa’s digital divide will likely deepen, causing the continent to fall further behind in the global AI race.
