The Federal Government yesterday inaugurated the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in Abuja, as part of its drive to position the country for the fourth industrial revolution that dwells on emerging technologies.

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Pantami, who performed the commissioning, said the establishment of the centre was in line with the eight pillars of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) of the Federal Government.

He also said the emerging technologies included artificial intelligence, internet, robotics, cyber security, virtual and augmented reality, block chain, big data analytics and cloud computing, among others.

Pantami said,

Artificial intelligence is the refinery of the digital economy. And robotics is very useful in supporting companies as they carry out repetitive tasks. These are two very important emerging technologies that will shape the face of future technologies. And we have decided to be proactive to enable us play a key role in how these technologies evolve.

He, however, disagreed with the belief that the use of robotics could lead to loss of jobs, instead, according to him, reports showed that deploying robotics led to the employment of about 150,000 people globally in engineering and assembly jobs.

Also, the director-general of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mr Kashifu Inuwa, said artificial intelligence was the ability of machines to mimic human thinking and behaviour, which could be applied to the project of developing systems with human characteristics.

He also said robotics was the engineering discipline that dealt with the design, construction and operation of robots, which complements human labour.

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.