The East African Community (EAC) has launched a coordinated drive to embed Kiswahili into the global artificial intelligence (AI) economy, declaring the language a piece of strategic digital infrastructure for the region.
Speaking at the World Kiswahili Language Day celebrations in Bujumbura early this month, regional leaders signed off on a series of resolutions to ensure the language, spoken by over 250 million people, is not left behind by the rapid rise of AI technologies.
To anchor this digital transition, the EAC AI Alliance announced the development of the “Kiswahili Trust Mark.” The upcoming certification framework will independently assess and certify AI models to ensure they understand, speak, and serve Kiswahili with proper linguistic quality, terminological accuracy, and cultural safety.
Alongside the certification plans, tech giant Google and the EAC unveiled a new compendium of Kiswahili AI terms. This dictionary initiative aims to standardise technical vocabulary so that machine learning, software development, and artificial intelligence can be taught and built natively in Kiswahili.
EAC officials pointed out that African nations must secure ownership of the local language datasets used to train global AI models, warning that regional innovation risks being locked out if global tech platforms fail to accurately reflect East Africa’s rich linguistic diversity.
–ChannelAfrica/EAC–
