The Gates Foundation and OpenAI have partnered to expand artificial intelligence (AI)-powered healthcare solutions across African countries, starting with a pilot programme in Rwanda. American billionaire Bill Gates and Co-Chair of Gates Foundation announced on Wednesday, January 21, in a blog post that the $50 million initiative, dubbed Horizon 1000, aims to deploy AI tools in the health sector by working closely with African governments and health leaders. ALSO READ: ICT minister on how Rwanda uses AI in healthcare, agriculture The initiative targets 1,000 primary healthcare clinics and their surrounding communities by 2028. “In sub-Saharan Africa, which suffers from the world’s highest child mortality rate, there is a shortfall of nearly six million healthcare workers, a gap so large that even the most aggressive hiring and training efforts can’t close it in the foreseeable future,” Gates wrote. “These huge shortages put health care workers in these countries in an impossible situation,” he added. Under Horizon 1000, AI tools will be rolled out across primary care clinics, communities and homes to support “not replace” health workers. The technology will help improve diagnosis, optimise resource allocation, and strengthen health system decision-making. Gates cited Rwanda’s Minister of Health, Dr Sabin Nsanzimana, who recently announced the launch of an AI-powered Health Intelligence Centre in Kigali under the government’s 4x4 health reform initiative. ALSO READ: What to know about Rwanda's new AI lab for healthcare delivery The centre is designed to ensure limited health resources are used more efficiently through data-driven decision-making. Dr Nsanzimana has described artificial intelligence as the third major discovery to transform medicine, after vaccines and antibiotics, a view Gates says he strongly agrees with. The Gates Foundation has already invested in several AI-driven health initiatives across Africa, while Rwanda has positioned itself as a regional leader in digital health transformation. In April 2025, Rwanda launched the National Health Intelligence Centre (NHIC) AI Lab, part of the broader National Health Study Centre. The facility uses real-time data to improve patient outcomes, optimise health financing, and drive innovation across the health sector. The centre integrates data from community health workers, health centres and hospitals to ensure policy and clinical decisions are based on accurate, up-to-date information. At community level, Rwanda has digitised the work of community health workers through Community EMR (cEMR), a digital health record system that replaces multiple manual registers which previously captured only about five percent of relevant patient data. At primary and secondary healthcare levels, platforms such as E-Ubuzima and E-Fiche track patients’ medical journeys from first contact to discharge, allowing the NHIC to receive comprehensive, real-time health data.
