Google and a consortium of African research institutions have launched the WAXAL dataset, a major new effort to correct one of artificial intelligence’s (AI) major challenges on the continent, its inability to interpret and understand most African languages.
The project delivers a large, open speech dataset spanning 21 Sub-Saharan African languages and brings voice technology to more than 100 million people excluded from the AI economy.
The WAXAL dataset is the product of a three-year collaboration funded by Google and led by local universities and community groups.
It includes 1,250 hours of transcribed, natural speech and more than 20 hours of studio-grade recordings aimed at building high-fidelity synthetic voices. It targets languages such as Hausa, Yoruba, Luganda, Igbo and Acholi, many of which are spoken by tens of millions but remain largely invisible to commercial speech systems.