Rwanda is set to become the first African country to benefit from a $50 million initiative by the Gates Foundation and OpenAI aimed at expanding artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare.

The initiative, dubbed Horizon 1000, will deploy AI tools in partnership with African governments and health leaders, targeting 1,000 primary healthcare clinics and their surrounding communities by 2028.

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Speaking at the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meetings on Wednesday, January 21, during a session titled "At the Cusp of Healthcare for All,” Bill Gates, American billionaire and Co-Chair of the Gates Foundation, said that artificial intelligence will play a key role in healthcare delivery, especially in developing countries, where there are not enough doctors and clinicians to meet demand.

"The goal is to make the work there [Rwanda] higher quality and, if possible, twice as efficient as it is today, reducing paperwork, organising resources, and helping patients know what’s available and when to come for appointments."

Gates noted that Rwanda has been a great partner for the Gates Foundation in many initiatives. "So we're thrilled that it's the first country this work will go into," he said.

"Over the next couple of years, I would expect developing world health may even get ahead of rich countries because the need is so great, and governments are embracing this and making sure that it's moving at full speed."

Gates added that, over time, the initiative will expand to other countries, including Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria.

Minister of ICT and Innovation Paula Ingabire said technology has always been central to Rwanda’s development, noting that with limited natural resources, the country has embraced technology as a key driver of growth and innovation.

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"We are very grateful that the Gates Foundation chose Rwanda as one of the countries to start this engagement. We are creating decision-support tools for our 60,000-plus community health workers who provide primary healthcare across the country,” she said.

Rwanda has rolled out a 4x4 health reform aimed at quadrupling the healthcare workforce within four years. Two years into the programme, the country has already reached 3.8 times its original workforce target.

"These health workers will need AI tools to improve care delivery, reduce administrative tasks, and focus on providing better, targeted care," the minister said.

She said that Rwanda has built national data intelligence platforms and is collecting the right datasets to train AI models that address real challenges while reducing bias and ensuring fairness.

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"We’re looking at different AI models to see which fits our needs. While we plan to create our own models in the future, for now we can use existing open-source models as long as they’re trained on our datasets and aligned with our local context."

Peter Sands, CEO of the Global Fund noted that Rwanda is really a beacon of what can be done.

According to him, the country already has 97 per cent connectivity, which even some fairly rich countries haven’t achieved.

"Low- and middle-income countries may adopt these tools faster than wealthier nations,” he added

He said that although AI has great potential to transform healthcare in Africa, many primary healthcare facilities still lack basic infrastructure such as electricity and internet connectivity.

"There is also a shortage of skilled professionals to use the technology effectively, with the risk of brain drain slowing progress if trained experts leave for better opportunities abroad,” he said.