Microsoft, Gates Foundation Back African AI Language Initiative

Masakhane African Languages Hub has partnered with Microsoft AI for Good Lab, the Gates Foundation, and Google.org to launch LINGUA Africa, an open funding initiative to build AI tools for the continent's 2,000-plus languages. Projects can receive up to $250,000 in cash and $400,000 in compute credits, with proposals closing June 15. The initiative targets sectors where language barriers limit AI's impact, including agriculture, healthcare, education, and government services. It builds on earlier Masakhane efforts and aims to support one billion Africans with locally relevant AI tools by 2029, addressing the near-total absence of African languages from global AI datasets and models.