Researchers across Africa are working to close a major gap in artificial intelligence by expanding support for African languages, most of which remain largely absent from mainstream AI systems. A 2025 study found that only 41 of Africa’s more than 2,000 languages are supported by leading language models, leaving over 98% without meaningful coverage. To address this imbalance, scientists at the University of Cape Town developed MzansiLM, an AI model trained on all 11 of South Africa’s official written languages, along with MzansiText, an accompanying dataset. Despite its smaller size, the system outperformed larger global models in some language tasks. According to experts, the issue stems from a lack of digital data in African languages. They warn that limited language representation risks excluding millions of Africans from the benefits of AI-powered services in healthcare, education, and finance.
African Business
