FG unveils AI model for local languages

The Federal Government has unveiled N-ATLAS, an open-source, multilingual and multimodal large language model that supports Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo and Nigerian-accented English.

Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, who announced this in a statement on his X account on Saturday, stated that the artificial intelligence was launched on the sidelines of the 80th United Nations General Assembly in New York.

According to the minister, N-ATLAS is developed to put African voices at the centre of AI development.

He said, “Starting with Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo and Nigerian-accented English, N-ATLAS places Africa’s voices and diversity at the foundation of AI.

“This is the first step in a broader journey to make Africa a contributor and leader in shaping AI’s future.”

According to the product description on its model card, N-ATLaS LLM features a speech-technology suite that includes language-specific automatic speech recognition models, which aid in transcription, accessibility, and local-language applications.

It can be used to build chatbots that answer citizen questions about government services in Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba or Nigerian-accented English.