Ghana sitting on untapped data wealth – UG Director

The Institute of Applied Science and Technology at the University of Ghana has highlighted the vast amount of untapped data that could be leveraged through artificial intelligence to address societal challenges. ‎According to the Director of the Institute, Professor Samuel Kojo Kwofie, data is the new gold, and Africa, particularly Ghana is sitting on a vast reserve that remains largely underutilised. ‎He made these remarks while speaking at the 2026 Day of Scientific Renaissance of Africa, organised by the School of Biological Sciences under the College of Basic and Applied Sciences at the University of Ghana.
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‎Professor Kwofie noted that large volumes of data exist across various sectors, including health and population census records, among others. He therefore called on the government to invest in data infrastructure and promote the use of artificial intelligence to drive development across different sectors of the Ghanaian economy.

”Now data is the new gold. So if the government can invest in data, we have so much data sitting here in the University of Ghana. If you look at the regular national census, we have so much data. If you go around, some of our colleagues have microscopic images of malaria parasites for over 20 years. If it’s food science, we’ve collected tons and tons of data and all these are gold. Many a times we always want to exploit resources beneath the ground but the data in the country is gold.
“So we need to have Ghana-led, Africa-led, universal initiative to use AI to address various sectors of our economy, be it health, agriculture, education and we’ve done a lot of work in AI and health and we’ve identified a lot of the challenges which basically overlaps with the work done before the National AI strategy.”

Credit: https://channelonenewsonline.com/2026/06/20/ghana-sitting-on-untapped-da...