The Federal Government has unveiled an artificial intelligence system designed to support Nigeria’s major local languages, a move officials say will place African voices at the centre of global AI innovation.
Known as N-ATLAS, the open-source, multilingual and multimodal large language model can process Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, and Nigerian-accented English.
Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, disclosed the development in a statement posted on his X account on Saturday.
He explained that the model was officially launched on the sidelines of the 80th United Nations General Assembly in New York.
“Starting with Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo and Nigerian-accented English, N-ATLAS places Africa’s voices and diversity at the foundation of AI,” Tijani said.
“This is the first step in a broader journey to make Africa a contributor and leader in shaping AI’s future.”
According to its developers, N-ATLAS comes with a speech technology suite that includes automatic speech recognition tailored for Nigerian languages. This allows the tool to transcribe radio, television, and online videos, generate captions and subtitles, and power chatbots that can interact with citizens in their local languages.
The ASR pipeline also supports call centres and voice assistants, enabling them to recognise Nigerian accents, transcribe conversations, and provide automated responses. In addition, it can summarise interviews conducted in indigenous languages for faster reporting and documentation.
The innovation was built by the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in partnership with Awarri Technologies, under the government’s language-AI initiative.
Tijani noted that the model was created to ensure Africa is not left behind in AI adoption. “Our aim is to use technology to amplify local languages, preserve our culture, and expand opportunities for citizens in education, governance, and commerce,” he said.
The model documentation has been made available on Hugging Face for public access and further development.
