It is practically evident that the parts of the world which adapt Artificial Intelligence have the feather in their cap. With its numerous benefits and vast applications in almost all sectors of life, it is no longer just an option.
Africa has also stepped forward into prioritizing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and is hopeful to reveal different opportunities in industry, health, agriculture, and other sectors.
Unlike the past revolutions, the AI revolution provides with endless opportunities to improve lives without exploiting continental reserves, political boundaries, international diplomacy, and equality.
Some of the points highlighting the benefits of Artificial Intelligence in the African continent are as under:
Business sector
African countries rely profoundly on business and trade with one another for their economy. Factors like multiple languages can arise as a barrier in regulating local trade. This is because of the huge cultural diversity of Africa that sectors like business might face some challenges.
With 2000 languages spoken in the continent, automated translations can be of great help.
AI can make translations easy which in return would increase the trade as per by rule of economics and thus the GDP of the countries.
Health sector
In 2016, a team at IBM Research found that it took four years for processing all cancer data and then reporting it to the government in Johannesburg. On the contrary, this analysis and reporting in the United States takes half the time to that of Africa. The difference lies in the adaptation to AI technology in the US.
From this example, we can infer how important is AI and machine-learning model in collecting healthcare data which is crucial in establishing health policies by the government.
Agricultural sector
Artificial Intelligence can support better crop, pesticide and fertilizer selection. Moreover, it also enhances land and water management, connects the farmers to the credit sources, and enables access to critical statistics such as weather information.
If Africa also adopts this Green Revolution like other countries, it can get a lot more productivity in its agricultural sector.
Industrial sector
Transaction of data through AI algorithms and adopting the AI machine-learning and automation in the industrial sector are few of the lot of perks AI has to offer in the African industries.
Africa can increase the productivity and the outcome of all manufactured items by improvising to the technological advancements going on at the global level.
Furthermore, AI can be a lot of help in the logistics, communication, mining, security, conservation sector, and the list goes on.
How much is Africa serious in implementing AI?
This year in April, Google launched the first African Research center for AI in Ghana. Furthermore, the African Institute for Mathematical Scientists – AIMS has organized a Master’s level degree program. The program gets its support by Tech Giants Google and Facebook, and is aimed to create skillful tech leaders in Africa.
However, Africa has a long way to go in reaching the mountain top of technology and needs a robust system to generate revolutionary projects and ideas. With more keen interest from the public and researchers, and research funding by the Government, this gap can be bridged.
