Google to Invest $37 Million in Strengthening AI in Africa

Google is set to invest $37 million into research, talent development, infrastructure, funding and partnerships to strengthen AI in Africa.

The funding, partly committed and unannounced, will fund AI research, support African languages, improve food systems, expand digital skills, and build research capacity.

In a statement, James Manyika, Senior Vice President for Research, Labs, and Technology & Society at Google: Africa is home to some of the most important and inspiring work in AI today. We are commied to supporting the next wave of innovation through long-term investment, local partnerships, and plaorms that help researchers and entrepreneurs build solutions that maer.

The AI Collaborative for Food Security, a $25 million funding from Google.org will help researchers, and organizations to co-develop AI tools for early hunger forecasting, crop resilience, and tailored guidance for smallholder farmers.

The goal is to help make food systems across Africa more adaptive, equitable, and resilient in the face of increasing climate and economic shocks.

Google also announced $3 million in funding to the Masakhane Research Foundation, the open research collective advancing AI tools in over 40 African languages. The funding will support the development of high-quality datasets, machine translation models, and speech tools that make digital content more accessible to millions of Africans in their native languages.

Google is also set to fund AI-driven startups tackling real-world challenges. This platform will combine philanthropic capital, venture investment, and Googles technical expertise to help more than 100 early-stage ventures scale AI-based solutions in agriculture, healthcare, education, and other vital sectors. Startups will also receive mentorship, access to tools, and technical guidance to support responsible development.

Africas AI talent is growing rapidly, but the infrastructure to support it must grow in tandem. Thats why a cornerstone of this announcement is the launch of the AI Community Center in Accra, a space for AI learning, experimentation, and collaboration in Africa.

The Center will host training sessions, community events, and workshops focused on responsible AI development. Its programming will span four pillars: AI literacy, community technology, social impact, and arts and culture providing a plaorm for a diverse ecosystem of developers, students, and creators to engage with AI in ways that are grounded in African priorities.

To help meet the rising demand for AI and digital skills, Google is rolling out 100,000 Google Career Certicate scholarships for students in higher learning institutions across Ghana. These fully funded, self-paced programs will focus on AI Essentials, Prompting Essentials, and other high-growth elds like IT Support, Data Analytics, and Cybersecurity enabling more learners to access job-ready training and build careers in AI and the digital economy.

Beyond Ghana, Google.org is committing an additional $7 million to support AI education across Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana. The funding will support academic institutions and nonprots building localized AI curricula, online safety training, and cybersecurity programs.

Additionally, two new $1 million grants from Google.org aim to bolster AI research capacity across the continent. One grant goes to the African Institute for Data Science and Articial Intelligence (AfriDSAI) at the University of Pretoria to support applied AI research and training. The other supports the Wits Machine Intelligence and Neural Discovery (MIND) Institute in South Africa, which will fund MSc and PhD students to conduct foundational AI research and help shape Africas role in the global AI landscape.

Yossi Matias, Vice President of Engineering and Research at Google, added: This new wave of support reects our belief in the talent, creativity, and ingenuity across the continent. By building with local communities and institutions, were supporting solutions that are rooted in Africas realities and built for global impact.

Googles past efforts have included partnerships to support AI-powered maternal health dashboards in Ghana and Nigeria, wildfire alerts in East Africa, and regional language models developed by teams in Accra and Nairobi.