Nigeria has been listed among the beneficiaries of the $100 million Global Fund for Artificial Intelligence (AI) unveiled by the United States to ensure the safe and effective use of AI technology.
Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, announced the AI fund during the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) event focused on Advancing Sustainable Development through safe, secure, and trustworthy AI. Representatives from global companies such as Open AI, Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, Google, Meta, and Nvidia were also present at the event in New York.
The discussion at the event revolved around the ethical and inclusive deployment of AI, with a particular focus on countries in the Global South, including Nigeria.
According to the US, the global fund aims to support these countries in three key areas: increasing access to AI models and tools, building technical capacity among individuals, and expanding local datasets.
1) Compute: Increasing access to AI models, compute credit and other AI tools.
2) Capacity: Building human technical capacity and
3) Context: Expanding local datasets.
Additionally, at the UNGA edition, the Ministry of Communications Information and Digital Economy (FMCIDE) showcased its progress in the digital transformation journey over the past year.
Bosun Tijani, Nigeria’s Minister of of Communications Information and Digital Economy highlighted the ministry’s efforts at the UNGA79, where he engaged in over 30 activities to showcase their plans, progress, and collaborations with global partners.
“With 30 plus engagements at #UNGA79,” the Minister said, “we have been extremely busy as we took advantage of the global platform of the annual event in New York to highlight our ministry’s plans and progress as well as initiating new collaborations and building on existing partnerships with global partners”
One of the key achievements highlighted was the development of Nigeria’s Multilingual Large Language Models, which aims to accurately represent the country’s diverse culture in global datasets.
The ministry also discussed ongoing initiatives such as the 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) programme, the $2 billion Fibre Fund, and the AI Collective’s deployment of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) in the government sector.
Tijani also expressed appreciation to all friends and partners who joined at the FMCIDE Nigeria Side Event at UNGA where they showcased all current and prospective partnerships on a global stage, “which also set the momentum for our participation.”
Meanwhile, Blinken said that the US Department of State intends to provide $10 million in Foreign Assistance, “subject to the availability of funds, to close the AI access gap and promote the objectives of the Partnership, including access to compute credits.”
The Department of State also plans to provide an additional $23 million in funding, “working with Congress, to promote the responsible use and governance of AI globally, among other objectives, to include programs that leverage AI tools to help countries achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.”
According to the US government, these include over $12 million for programmes using AI as a tool to advance democracy, promote human and labour rights, and foster justice and accountability.
Another $5 million in Education and Cultural Exchanges funding for programmes that contribute to AI capacity building. These include academic programmes, professional and cultural exchanges, private sector exchanges, as well as policy and monitoring evaluation learning and innovation activities.
Another funding of over $3 million will be provided for programmes that employ AI to identify mis-and disinformation and prevent online hate from spreading to offline violence for members of religious minority communities.
A $1.2 million project will develop a Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy AI Policy Framework and Ecosystem in member states of the Organization of American States.
An additional $1.3 million is to launch USAID’s Responsible AI funding to conduct AI-related programmes through the Digital Forward mechanism.
Meet the tech companies backing $100 million Global Fund for AI
According to the US government, participating companies announced the following commitments:
- Amazon Web Services: Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a donation of $10 million in credits in support of this partnership to help close the AI access gap around the world. Amazon is committed to offering skills training to empower the next generation of innovators and has already trained over 31 million learners across 200 countries and territories in cloud computing skills. Additionally, AWS has committed to provide free AI-specific skills training to two million more people globally by 2025—underscoring Amazon’s commitment to cultivating an inclusive, diverse pipeline of cloud talent to drive innovation.
- Anthropic: AI models can play a crucial role in supporting and accelerating developing countries’ work to address SDGs and better support their citizens. As part of the Partnership for Global Inclusivity on AI, Anthropic will provide up to $1 million in API access to Claude and Claude for Teams to government projects focused on improving citizen services, advancing democracy, and supporting the UN sustainable development goals.
- Google: Google is providing $120 million to support a Global AI Opportunity Fund to make AI education and training available throughout the world. Google is partnering with nonprofit and civil society organizations to provide training in local languages based on foundational AI courses designed by Google and others. This is in addition to $275 million in Google.org funding to support development of AI solutions to address the SDGs as well as Research efforts, which include Flood Forecasting in over 80 countries, wildfire detection, and AlphaFold which is being used by over 2 million scientists in over 190 countries toward novel research. Of this, $10 million will specifically support the aims of the MOU signed today with the US State Department. In addition, Google has announced a number of submarine cable investments over the last year that will expand the reach, reliability, and resilience of the global internet. This includes Umoja, the first submarine cable connecting Africa directly to Australia. These cables provide vital connectivity, driving economic growth and job creation.
- IBM: IBM believes AI is the transformative technology of our time, and that the world needs innovation, access to technology and partnerships like this, to create a more sustainable and equitable future. To help vulnerable populations address environmental challenges, this year, we have extended our pledge through the IBM Sustainability Accelerator to provide up to $45 million in expertise and technologies, such as AI, by the end of 2028. In addition, we work with organizations such as NASA and UNDP to develop valuable data sets and make them more accessible – including in developing countries – for earth science research and energy equity. We also continue our commitment to train two million learners in AI globally by 2026, helping to democratize AI opportunity and close the growing skills gap. We are making progress towards this goal through our IBM SkillsBuild program providing the following: AI training to education organizations and adult learners, access to technology, and opportunities for university students to apply IBM’s watsonx technology to create real-world AI solutions.
- Meta: In 2024 and 2025, Meta will invest more than $10 million in programmatic support globally to expand open-source AI innovation. With this investment, they will increase access to open-source AI globally, including in Latin America, Africa, Middle East and Asia by: offering grants, training and ad credits to developers and organizations leveraging Meta’s Llama 3 and Llama 3.1 models for social impact projects; and by funding global trainings on open-source AI and Llama to small businesses and governments. Meta has invested billions to make AI open and accessible, including through their Fundamental AI Research Lab. Meta, UNESCO and Hugging Face also announced a collaboration to leverage Meta’s “No Language Left Behind” model to deliver translations in 200 languages, including indigenous languages. Meta has made over 200 datasets publicly available, including AI-powered population and poverty maps helping accelerate access to water, electrification and financial assistance throughout the global south.
- Microsoft: In 2024 and 2025, Microsoft is contributing to the Partnership for Global Inclusivity on AI by investing more than $12 billion in AI data center infrastructure, connectivity, and skilling in the Global South. In Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the company is expanding and building new datacenters, boosting cybersecurity capacity, providing broad digital skilling at scale, nonprofit technical and financial support, and local R&D. Partnering with local providers, the company’s Airband Initiative aims to provide broadband connectivity for 250 million unserved and underserved people in the Global South, including 100 million in Africa. During this same time frame, it will provide AI and digital skilling for five million people in the Global South.
- Nvidia: NVIDIA is committed to democratizing AI and empowering businesses and governments around the world to harness the transformational power of AI. NVIDIA works with startups, universities, and developers in every region to help them build and grow local AI ecosystems and develop innovative solutions to some of society’s biggest challenges. Under this partnership, NVIDIA will provide $10m/year in training programs to upskill developers and IT professionals in emerging economies. NVIDIA also provides compute credits and hardware grants for higher education research to universities around the world. Through NVIDIA’s global Inception program, NVIDIA supports nearly 5,000 start-ups in emerging economies with technical expertise, go-to-market support, hardware and software discounts, and access to free cloud computing credits provided through NVIDIA partners. In 2024 alone, this program has mobilized more than $60 million in free cloud compute credits for start-ups in emerging economies.
- OpenAI: OpenAI is launching the OpenAI Academy, which will invest in developers and organizations in low- and middle-income countries who are leveraging AI to help solve hard problems and spur economic growth in their communities. To support this initiative, OpenAI will distribute an initial $1 million in API credits and provide training and technical guidance. Our goal is to support the creation of thriving AI ecosystems around the world by ensuring broad access to the technology and empowering those developing innovative new ways of using it.
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