New AI for Development partnership up and running at IDRC

This new CAD70-million partnership builds on IDRC’s AI4D Africa partnership with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, which has been working closely with African artificial intelligence (AI) communities since 2020 to leverage AI through high-quality research, responsible innovation and talent strengthening. AI4D Africa projects led to the establishment of research networks, policy labs and innovations, such as an app that gives farmers in Kenya access to early predictions of the presence and life-cycle stage of tomato plant pests based on land temperatures. This will help farmers to control pests and increase crop yields.

The new partnership will also coordinate other IDRC, AI-related programming in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, such as the Global Index on Responsible AI, the Feminist AI Network and the AI for Global Health initiative.

The AI research and innovations supported by IDRC centre around the concept of responsible AI: the practice of designing, developing and deploying AI systems that are safe, inclusive, rights-based and sustainable. IDRC also supports research that can help mitigate the societal risks of this disruptive technology, including the identification of existing biases in AI systems.