Bright Simons proposes $13m civil service AI assistant as alternative to Ghana’s $270m GhanaChat plan
Vice-President and head of Research at the IMANI Centre for Policy and Education, Bright Simons has proposed a cheaper alternative to Ghana’s planned US$270 million GhanaChat project, arguing that a sovereign artificial intelligence (AI) assistant for the civil service could be a more practical starting point for the country’s AI ambitions. In a post on X, Mr Simons questioned the rationale for…
Vice-President Bright Simons has suggested that the Ghanaian government consider a more cost-effective alternative to the proposed $270 million GhanaChat project, which aims to build a sovereign AI assistant for the civil service. Simons argues that using existing AI models could support government operations more affordably. He criticizes the planning of a national AI platform to compete with global services like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, as their computing capacity requirements are not feasible for Ghana's current and future power generation capabilities.
Simons points out errors in the Ministry's AI strategy, such as the misinterpretation of FLOPS (floating point operations per second), which led to unrealistic computational targets. He emphasizes the need for critical policy reviews and engagement of independent voices to avoid flawed strategies, highlighting the lack of such scrutiny in Ghana's policy-making process.
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