Build for, on, and with N-ATLAS
National AI Innovation Challenge
A national programme to deepen the development, adoption and scale of Nigeria’s sovereign Artificial Intelligence through N-ATLAS.
Applications Open · 21 September 2026
Deadline · 12 October 2026
Build-only challenge — submit a working solution integrated with N-ATLAS.
About the Programme
Moving N-ATLAS from model availability to national infrastructure
The National AI Innovation Challenge is designed to deepen the technical development, adoption and practical use of Nigeria’s sovereign AI capabilities.
At the centre is N-ATLAS (Nigerian Atlas for Languages and AI at Scale), Nigeria’s first open-source, multilingual large language model. Fine-tuned from Llama-3 8B, it supports Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo and Nigerian-accented English, with Automatic Speech Recognition for voice applications.
The challenge directs Nigerian talent towards building developer tools, voice-first applications, and sector-specific AI solutions on N-ATLAS.
N-ATLAS Capabilities
- Multilingual LLM supporting Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Nigerian English
- Automatic Speech Recognition for voice-driven applications
- Open-source model fine-tuned from Llama-3 8B
Implemented By