Forget building another ChatGPT; Ghana must focus on AI solutions for healthcare, agric – GradePoint AI CEO

Founder and Chief Executive Officer of GradePoint AI, Dr Gillian Hammah, has cautioned the government against investing heavily in attempts to develop its own large artificial intelligence models, arguing that the country should instead adapt existing technologies to solve local problems.

She believes Ghana’s limited financial resources make competing with global AI developers an expensive undertaking that could divert attention from more pressing national needs.

Speaking at the Step Up Executive Breakfast Series, Dr Hammah said Ghana does not need to build another ChatGPT but should concentrate on developing smaller, specialised AI models tailored to the country’s needs.

“We don’t need to build our own ChatGPT,” she said, arguing that the country should leverage existing large language models and customise them for specific local applications.

She explained that such models, known as Small Language Models (SLMs), can be adapted using specialised datasets to address challenges in particular sectors.

Using healthcare as an example, she said the Ministry of Health could develop an AI model trained on Ghana’s health data while benefiting from the capabilities and training of existing larger models.

“The Ministry of Health, for example, is deciding that they’re going to build a model that has our health data, but it has all the benefits and the training from the bigger models. That’s what we need,” she explained.

Dr Hammah argued that this approach would allow Ghana to benefit from advances in AI without committing the enormous financial resources required to develop entirely new large language models.

She said the country should instead direct its attention towards practical applications in healthcare, agriculture and food production.

“For us to try and be another ChatGPT, we’re wasting our time. Let us try and start solving the problems that are relevant to us today,” she stressed.

She further argued that developing the biggest AI model should not be Ghana’s priority when the technology could be deployed to address everyday challenges affecting citizens.

“And building the biggest model is not it. Solving our problems day to day, health, food, agriculture, that’s where we need to start,” she said.

Dr Hammah also identified poor data management as a major obstacle to Ghana’s AI ambitions, calling for a nationwide exercise to digitise and harmonise government records.

She believes reliable and accessible data would provide the foundation for developing specialised AI applications that respond to the country’s needs.

The discussion formed part of the Step Up Executive Breakfast Series held under the theme, “The AI-Powered Project Leader: How to Lead, Deliver & Stay Relevant in the Age of AI.”