Vice‑President and head of research at the IMANI Centre for Policy and Education, Bright Simons, has called for a more modest, $13 million AI assistant for Ghana’s civil service, instead of the $270 million GhanaChat project slated for a new AI data‑center.
Simons questioned the Ministry of Digital Communications’ rationale for building a national AI platform to compete with global services such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, noting that existing models could support government operations at a lower cost.
He highlighted that GhanaChat would be trained and hosted in a brand‑new AI data‑center, with 48 public‑sector registries pooling data to make the system “smarter about Ghana.” The Ministry’s AI Fund and the data‑center alone are projected to cost about US$270 million, with further spending on registries, apps and contracts expected to raise the bill.
Simons questioned whether such an outlay is the best use of the country’s AI ambition, arguing that a sovereign assistant could deliver greater benefits for civil servants and the public at a fraction of the cost.
He pointed out that the Ministry’s AI strategy contains a number of confusing figures, such as a target of “1021 FLOPS” for 2027, which he believes is a typo for 10²¹ FLOPS – a figure that would require 200,000 Nvidia chips and 500 MW of power, costing roughly US$24 billion.
Simons warned that the strategy’s lack of critical review and unrealistic projections could lead to costly failures, drawing parallels to other Ghanaian initiatives that have struggled due to insufficient scrutiny.
He urged the government to reassess its strategy and consider a more practical, cost‑effective AI solution that aligns with Ghana’s current resources and needs.
