N-ATLAS is an initiative started by Silas Adekunle, a Nigerian-British robotics engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur. He is the CEO and co-founder of Awarri, the frontier technology company that built Nigeria's first multilingual AI assistant, which was trained locally with Nigerian talent and languages.
Awarri and the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy (FMCIDE), in partnership with the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR) as well as the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), have launched Nigeria's first multilingual and multimodal large language model (LLM) to the world.
N-ATLAS is an LLM designed to support major Nigerian languages like Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, and Nigerian-accented English. This immediately makes AI more accessible and useful to a large portion of the Nigerian population who may not be proficient in standard English.
For too long, the question has been whether Nigerian engineers, scientists, and innovators can measure up to global standards. With N-ATLAS, the conversation is shifting. Awarri has built a system that prepares, certifies, and deploys Nigerian talent to the world while harnessing their expertise to transform Nigeria's economy.
The launch of N-ATLAS proves something I argued in my recent op-ed on the Washington Accord (engineering) and Seoul Accord (computing): with the right systems, Nigeria’s talent shines without question.
If N-ATLAS is about cataloging and validating existing talent, the Seoul Accord is about shaping the pipeline of tomorrow’s talent. The two complement each other.
By building its own foundational AI model, Nigeria has positioned itself to be more than just a consumer of technology, but a driver of innovation capable of exporting ideas, talent, and solutions to the rest of the world.