Nigeria has launched its first National Artificial Intelligence Centre of Excellence at the University of Jos, marking a major step in the country’s push to build local AI research capacity, develop talent and position Africa’s most populous nation as an active contributor to the global AI ecosystem.

The centre, unveiled by Bosun Tijani, the minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, during the university’s 50th convocation ceremony, will serve as a national hub for advanced AI research, skills development, policy engagement and innovation. It is the first facility of its kind in Nigeria and will be supported by the federal government through the ministry.

Tijani said the initiative reflects Nigeria’s determination not to remain a passive consumer of artificial intelligence technologies or a rule taker in emerging global AI governance frameworks.

With a population of more than 240 million people and growing by about five million annually, Nigeria must play a defining role in how AI systems are designed, governed and deployed, he said.

A key focus of the centre will be inclusive research and data representation, aimed at ensuring AI systems understand Nigeria’s social realities, languages, cultures and economic structures.

Tijani said universities must lead research into locally relevant datasets and contextual intelligence that reflect the country’s diversity rather than relying solely on imported models trained on foreign data.

Challenging the notion that global AI leadership is driven purely by access to computing power, the minister noted that decades of academic investment in machine learning and related fields have underpinned progress in countries such as France and the United States.

He said Nigeria’s academic institutions must similarly engage deeply in foundational research if the country is to derive meaningful economic and social value from AI.

“AI is built on numbers, and Nigeria has the numbers. We are too big a country not to participate meaningfully in artificial intelligence,” Tijani said, pointing to projections that the country’s population could approach 500 million within two decades.

The University of Jos was chosen to host the centre as part of a broader strategy to empower Nigerian universities to become engines of innovation and thought leadership from the global South. As an alumnus of the institution, Tijani said the university must move beyond observing Nigeria’s digital future to actively shaping it.

The National AI Centre of Excellence is expected to play a central role in talent development, research collaboration and policy advisory work as Nigeria ramps up its digital economy agenda in 2026 and beyond, amid growing global competition to shape the future of artificial intelligence.