MTN Group has pledged support for Nigeria’s effort to collect African language datasets to develop the continent’s own large language models, a move seen as critical to preventing the exclusion of Africa’s 1.5 billion people from the global AI ecosystem.

The commitment was made during The Y’ello Chair Vodcast: Your Link to the African Continent, where Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy called for stronger collaboration between government and the private sector to fund research on Africa’s linguistic diversity. MTN, which operates in 16 markets across Africa and the Middle East, said it is prepared to mobilize resources to advance the initiative.

The discussion followed the launch of the Nigerian Atlas for Languages & AI at Scale (N-ATLAS), an open-source multilingual model designed to digitize and preserve Nigeria’s linguistic heritage. Nigeria, which is home to more than 500 languages, is leading the effort in partnership with Awarri Technologies. The ATLAS framework is intended for use across the continent, enabling AI applications in local languages that can transform education, healthcare, commerce, and governance.

With more than 2,000 languages spoken across Africa, most remain underrepresented in artificial intelligence systems. Advocates say collecting and structuring datasets is key to ensuring African citizens are not left behind in the digital economy, which is increasingly seen as a driver of inclusion, dignity, and poverty reduction through technology.