Rwanda has secured a fresh $17.5 million injection from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to establish the Rwanda AI Scaling Hub, positioning the country as the first focal point on the continent for scaling artificial intelligence solutions for public-interest sectors.
The funding, more than double the Foundation’s earlier $7.5 million pledge, will finance the Hub’s launch next year to accelerate AI innovation in health, education, agriculture, and other high-impact domains.
The announcement was delivered by Yves Iradukunda, Minister of State at the Ministry of ICT and Innovation, during a briefing with senators in Kigali.
“This is a project that will continue to grow, and its budget will increase over time. We appreciate the partnership with the Gates Foundation,” Iradukunda said.
The Hub forms part of a continental programme unveiled at the Global AI Summit on Africa in April 2025, which introduced four regional hubs. Rwanda’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR), under the ICT Ministry, has been selected to host the first.
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The Hub’s mandate is to accelerate the development and responsible deployment of AI technologies that solve real-world constraints in underserved communities across Africa. Rwanda’s pipeline spans AI-powered ultrasound and telemedicine, smart agriculture, and digital learning.
Among the early use cases are an AI telemedicine platform with Irembo that will deliver remote consultations and prescriptions via SMS, chat and voice in Kinyarwanda; an AI-driven supply-chain system at Rwanda Medical Supply (RMS) for drug forecasting and procurement intelligence; AI-assisted ultrasound to detect pregnancy complications in minutes in rural settings; AI advisory services to smallholder farmers via WhatsApp, SMS and voice; and AI-based grading tools in primary schools.
“AI can help bridge the teacher-student gap by offering personalised learning support, especially in overcrowded classrooms,” Iradukunda added.
Beyond deployments, the Hub will function as an innovation and scale-up platform, supporting startups with capital, mentorship and compute resources while advising on ethical and inclusive AI policy for both state and private sectors.
Its establishment signals Rwanda’s intention to anchor continental leadership in responsible AI adoption, not as a demonstration lab but as a scale node designed to convert AI into measurable public-value gains in clinics, classrooms and farms.
The funding push comes at a moment of rising global scrutiny over how Africa will translate AI into development outcomes rather than deepen inequality.
