The new centre will serve as the university’s focal point for artificial intelligence research and innovation, with a mandate to develop locally driven AI solutions to address national challenges.
Somali National University (SNU) has officially launched the Somali National Artificial Intelligence Centre (SNAIC), a new Centre of Excellence established to promote artificial intelligence research, education, innovation and capacity building in Somalia.
The Somali National Artificial Intelligence Centre (SNAIC) will serve as the nation’s first dedicated institute for AI, the centre represents a major milestone in Somalia’s digital transformation, designed to foster locally driven technology solutions for national development.
The launch ceremony, held in Mogadishu, brought together representatives from government institutions, universities, research organisations, academia, and technology and artificial intelligence experts. The gathering underscored the growing importance of AI in supporting Somalia’s digital transformation and national development agenda.
The initiative also speaks directly to a concern Somalia has recently raised on the regional stage. At the East African Community World Kiswahili Language Day and the international Kiswahili conference held in Bujumbura earlier this month, Somalia delivered a national statement arguing that African languages and dialects must not be excluded from artificial intelligence.
That argument rests on a technical reality: the large language models driving the current wave of AI are trained overwhelmingly on a handful of dominant world languages, and tongues with a smaller digital footprint, Somali among them, risk being poorly served or ignored altogether. A national centre that names natural language processing among its core research areas is, in effect, the domestic answer to that appeal, the point at which advocacy abroad becomes institution-building at home.
The new centre will serve as the university’s focal point for artificial intelligence research and innovation, with a mandate to develop locally driven AI solutions to address national challenges. Its activities will span key areas including machine learning, natural language processing, data science, computer vision, robotics and AI ethics.
Previously overseen by the Ministry of Communications and Technology, the hub has now been fully integrated into the public university framework to better align academic research with country-wide priorities.
To secure long-term sustainability, the center will roll out formal academic programs alongside professional certifications. According to university coverage by Radio Balcad, the center’s long-term goal is to transition from a localized asset into a broader regional powerhouse, establishing international collaborations from a position of native technological sovereignty.
SNAIC will also support the application of AI across multiple sectors, including education, healthcare, agriculture, governance and the broader economy. By fostering research, skills development and innovation, the centre aims to strengthen Somalia’s AI ecosystem and equip researchers, students and technology professionals with the expertise needed to drive digital transformation and sustainable development.
