Bright Simons flags computing capacity error in Ghana’s AI strategy and questions GhanaChat costs

Vice-President and head of Research at the IMANI Centre for Policy and Education, Bright Simons has questioned the financial viability of Ghana’s proposed US$270 million artificial intelligence (AI) data centre, warning that its operating costs could require substantial annual government subsidies. Referring to an argument he made on Joy News’ Digital Economy Forum on AI and the Ghana Economy on Wednesday, Mr Simons said in a post on X, Mr Simons said the facility, which is expected to support the development and hosting of GhanaChat, would have a computing capacity of about 2,100 graphics processing units (GPUs) and an information technology (IT) load of 4.3 megawatts (MW). Readers of this page know by now that JoyNews held a forum on Ghana’s AI strategy and prospects.

And the Digital Minister and I got into a serious debate about his Ministry’s plan to build Ghana’s competitor to Gemini, Kimi, ChatGPT, Qwen, Claude, etc. Ghana’s competitor to these global AI platforms is called GhanaChat. It will be trained and hosted in a brand new AI datacenter.

48 registries pooling data from across the public sector will make this AI smarter about Ghana than the foreign ones. The AI datacenter and the "AI Fund" will cost about $270 million. Expect more to be spent on the registries and the apps.

You can bet that a lot of ICT contractors are very happy. The question is, if we have a couple of hundred million dollars to spend on making AI deliver great benefits for Ghana, should we spend it on GhanaChat, a top-tier AI data center, and the data-pooling system? And should we do it according to the strategy the Ministry has devised?

Or could we do much better by more critically assessing all our strategic options and comparing them to the Ministry’s? My argument on the show was that I am not convinced about GhanaChat offering the best value for our money. It would take many pages to explain my position fully.

But in this post I will highlight just the most important points. Attached are extracts from page 13, 50, and 68 of Ghana’s AI strategy. If you have even the barest exposure to AI, you can see a massive error.