In a significant move toward supporting Africa’s linguistic diversity, Google has introduced Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, and 12 additional African languages to its Voice Search and Translate dictation features. This update brings the total languages supported by Gboard and Voice Search to 25, while Google Translate now accommodates 22 languages.
Google attributes this development to advancements in artificial intelligence, particularly multilingual speech recognition. The underlying AI model functions by associating spoken sounds with written characters, mimicking the way young children learn to recognize language patterns. With data training across multiple languages, the model can transcribe speech into text in any of these languages with greater accuracy.
Alongside its language expansion, Google has announced a $5.8 million funding commitment through Google.org to enhance AI and cybersecurity education across sub-Saharan Africa. This initiative aims to equip workers, students, nonprofit leaders, and public sector entities with essential digital skills. Notably, Nigeria’s Data Scientists Network Foundation will receive $1.5 million to launch a program that trains unemployed and at-risk Nigerians in foundational technology skills, with a vision to build advanced AI and data expertise over time.
In collaboration with the Raspberry Pi Foundation, the program will also extend to Kenyan and Nigerian youth through AI literacy education initiatives. Google emphasized that this funding builds upon its previous $20 million investment through Google.org to support digital skill development across Africa under its economic opportunity initiative.
