Kenya‘s Artificial Intelligence (AI) sector received $15 million (Sh1.95 billion) in funding in 2023, a new report shows, pipping Nigeria’s which got $2.9 million (Sh 377.9 million).
The two nations, however, trailed South Africa where inflows to the AI sector hit $123 million (Sh16.02 billion), the report by the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) shows.
“In 2023, African tech startups received investments of about $4 billion, with Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, and Egypt accounting for the bulk of the funding,” the report said.
“However, investments towards AI still represent a minority of total tech investments.”
Kenyans are embracing the use of AI to catalyse their businesses and day-to-day activities.
AI technology allows computers and machines to simulate human intelligence and problem-solving tasks. The technology can be applied to many sectors and industries, including healthcare, manufacturing, and the military.
The GSMA report shows that the use of AI in Kenya is presently concentrated in the agricultural sector with the involvement of machine learning to equip local farmers with data-driven advice that seeks to aid them optimise productivity.
The report shows that agriculture and food security takes up 49 percent of all AI deployments followed by climate action and energy use cases at 26 percent and 24 percent respectively.
Kenya has set up a team to draw a policy on the use of AI, as it races to plug loopholes amid the fast-growing popularity of the technology.
The 21-member committee, which was gazetted last month, will draw up rules on the technology and identify legal gaps in cybercrimes and computer misuse.
Kenya, like other countries, is racing against time to embrace the new technology amid concerns about implications on the human labour force and data security among others.
Kenya currently lacks a legal framework for the deployment of AI, a gap that has raised fears about the security of the technology. These rules aim to set obligations for providers and users, based on various risks associated with different AI technologies.
AI heavily relies on vast amounts of personal and sensitive data and the growing adoption of the new technology continues to fuel fears on data privacy and security.
The private sector is leading the adoption of the new technology in Kenya with experts saying that transparency of AI solutions is critical in driving its adoption across the country’s different social-economic segments.
An analysis by the International Monetary Fund shows that 40 percent of global employment is exposed to AI disruptions.
Source link : https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/markets/capital-markets/kenya-beats-nigeria-in-ai-investment-inflows-4693680
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Publish date : 2024-07-18 02:00:00
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