Ghana has set a target of becoming the leading artificial intelligence hub in West Africa and across the wider African continent, driving innovation, creating jobs and delivering inclusive national development through a deliberate and well-resourced strategy.
President John Dramani Mahama laid out the vision on Friday at the launch of Ghana’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2025 to 2035, saying the country had both the talent and the determination to lead the continent in the responsible deployment and governance of AI.
“Our vision is to position Ghana as a leading artificial intelligence hub in West Africa and the wider continental region, driving innovation, creating jobs, and strengthening institutions and delivering inclusive national development,” Mahama said.
The President said realising that vision required leadership from the very top, which was why he had sent all his ministers and senior government officials through a National AI Boot Camp. “Leadership must understand the tools that will define our future,” he said.
He pointed to Ghana’s youthful and digitally engaged population as one of the country’s greatest advantages in the age of AI, arguing that with structured opportunity and the right investments, that demographic strength could power the country’s rise as a continental technology leader.
President Mahama was candid about one of the biggest challenges standing between Ghana and its AI ambitions, the fact that most existing AI systems are trained on data shaped by foreign cultures, languages and assumptions, making them poorly suited to Ghanaian realities.
“Ghana cannot build a meaningful AI future using systems that do not understand our Ghanaian realities. We must invest in local data ecosystems, promote the integration of our indigenous languages, and support the development of context-aware AI systems that reflect who we are and serve the needs of our people,” he noted.
He illustrated the point with a personal anecdote, explaining how an AI app was able to diagnose that a wilting cactus plant at his home was being overwatered, but pointing out that such tools were only useful if they could communicate in local languages understood by rural farmers who could not read English.
“We must not only use AI, we must localise AI,” President Mahama said.
By 2035, the government envisions a national AI ecosystem in which innovation hubs flourish beyond Accra, universities lead in frontier research, Ghanaian startups scale globally and the public service becomes fully capable of leading AI-enabled transformation.
Richard Aniagyei, ISD
