By Modupe Gbadeyanka
A speech dataset designed to catalyze research and build more inclusive Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies has been launched by Google in partnership with a consortium of leading African research institutions, which are mainly universities.
The main universities involved in the project known as WAXAL are Makerere University in Uganda, the University of Ghana, and Digital Umuganda in Rwanda.
A statement from Google on Monday said the dataset bridges a critical digital divide for over 100 million speakers by providing foundational data for 21 sub-Saharan African languages, including Hausa, Luganda, Yoruba, and Acholi.
While voice-enabled technologies have become common in much of the world, a profound scarcity of high-quality speech data has prevented their development for most of Africa’s over 2,000 languages. This has excluded hundreds of millions of people from accessing technology in their native tongues.
The WAXAL dataset was created to directly address this gap. Developed over three years with funding from Google, the project features 1,250 hours of transcribed, natural speech, and Over 20 hours of high-quality, studio recordings designed for building high-fidelity synthetic voices.
The WAXAL dataset, which is available starting today, covers Acholi, Akan, Dagaare, Dagbani, Dholuo, Ewe, Fante, Fulani (Fula), Hausa, Igbo, Ikposo (Kposo), Kikuyu, Lingala, Luganda, Malagasy, Masaaba, Nyankole, Rukiga, Shona, Soga (Lusoga), Swahili, and Yoruba.
Commenting on the development, the Head of Google Research for Africa, Ms Aisha Walcott-Bryantt, said, “The ultimate impact of WAXAL is the empowerment of people in Africa.
“This dataset provides the critical foundation for students, researchers, and entrepreneurs to build technology on their own terms, in their own languages, finally reaching over 100 million people.
“We look forward to seeing African innovators use this data to create everything from new educational tools to voice-enabled services that create tangible economic opportunities across the continent.”
Also commenting, a Senior Lecturer at Makerere University’s School of Computing and Information Technology, Ms Joyce Nakatumba-Nabende, said, “For AI to have a real impact in Africa, it must speak our languages and understand our contexts.
“The WAXAL dataset gives our researchers the high-quality data they need to build speech technologies that reflect our unique communities. In Uganda, it has already strengthened our local research capacity and supported new student and faculty-led projects.”
An Associate Professor at the University of Ghana, Mr Isaac Wiafe, said, “For us at the University of Ghana, WAXAL’s impact goes beyond the data itself. It has empowered us to build our own language resources and train a new generation of AI researchers.
“Over 7,000 volunteers joined us because they wanted their voices and languages to belong in the digital future.
“Today, that collective effort has sparked an ecosystem of innovation in fields like health, education, and agriculture. This proves that when the data exists, possibility expands everywhere.”
