TECH GIANT Google has opened its artificial intelligence (AI) research centre in Ghana, making it the first to be opened in Africa.

The AI centre will gather machine learning researchers and engineers across the capital, to facilitate local AI development.

Addressing the media at an event, head of Google AI, Moustapha Cisse said the aim of launching the AI Research Center in Accra is to meet the interest in machine learning research across Africa.

“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.

According to Cisse, Google plans to collaborate with universities, research organisations and policy makers in order to deploy AI to solve challenges in various sectors, including healthcare, education, agriculture plus more.

“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 has now joined a list of Google AI centres across the word, which includes Tokyo, Montreal, New York, Paris, Zurich, Tel Aviv/Haifa plus more.