Artificial intelligence (AI) is conquering all spheres of economic and social life. While the issue still sparks debate, more and more companies are using it to try to provide solutions to society’s challenges. The technology giant Google stands out in this area with an AI research laboratory based in Accra, Ghana.
A Google AI lab to solve African societal challenges
Not long ago, technology giant Google made waves with Gemini, the AI tool that hears ” kill “ GPT-4 from OpenAI. But the company is much more involved in this technological segment than it seems.
Indeed, Google is actively engaged in solving societal challenges in Africa. This, by developing solutions based on artificial intelligence (AI). To this end, the American technology giant has established a first specialized AI research laboratory in Accra, Ghana.
The mission of the institution is clear. It is about finding answers to issues such as global warming, anarchic urbanization, and the taking into account of African languages by technologies.
To achieve this, Google’s AI research center focuses on the use of satellite images. Data that it uses to understand the planet, analyze the weather and study urban planning.
Several initiatives undertaken
Flood Hub is a first concrete example of the use of these images by Google’s AI lab. This AI-based platform anticipates flood risks by combining weather forecasts, satellite images and hydraulic modeling.
Currently, Flood Hub covers 80 countries. Notably, it sends notifications to 460 million people, providing valuable information to governments, humanitarian organizations and individuals.
The second example of Google’s AI lab’s use is Open Buildings. This is a database listing 516 million African buildings based on high-resolution satellite images. A way to facilitate urban planning, among other things.
In addition to these projects, the research laboratory also looked into the integration of African languages into technologies. To this end, it is collaborating with the University of Ghana to produce an open source data package. The goal is to allow any developer in Ghana to create AI models compatible with local languages. The challenge of the continent’s weak digital transformation remains to be met, a major obstacle to the rapid implementation of these very interesting initiatives.
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