Ethiopia’s Artificial Intelligence Institute (AII) has become one of the continent’s “most visible and influential” AI institutions following several years of rapid progress, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said during a ceremony marking the Institute’s relocation to the former Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation headquarters, AllAfrica reported.
The prime minister highlighted what he described as “remarkable achievements” since the AII’s establishment five years ago, positioning it at the forefront of Africa’s emerging AI landscape. Among its most prominent innovations is an internationally patented breast cancer detection technology, which government officials say has gained recognition beyond Ethiopia. The Institute has also secured a patent for a system that diagnoses diseases in coffee plants and other agricultural products, a development Abiy said could strengthen a sector central to Ethiopia’s economy.
According to AllAfrica, Abiy emphasized that the Institute’s work extends beyond software development. He said teams are increasingly designing and building hardware for robotics, drones and communication technologies, part of a broader effort to develop domestic capability across the AI value chain.
The Institute has also produced “Mesob,” a digital services platform offering more than 100 tools through a unified interface. Abiy said AII has helped modernize operations in key government ministries — including Finance, Revenue and the Customs Commission — by deploying tailored digital systems that improve efficiency.
Language technologies are another major focus area. Powered by thousands of hours of audio data, AII has built tools enabling real-time communication across Ethiopian languages such as Amharic, Afan Oromo, Somali, Tigrinya and Afar, using text-to-speech, speech-to-text and cross-language conversion systems.
Abiy said Ethiopia has historically struggled to keep pace with global technological shifts, but the country is now making a deliberate effort not to fall behind in the AI era. “Whether we like it or not,” he said, “Ethiopia must fully immerse itself in the artificial intelligence revolution.”
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