IAAD WEEKLY AI INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING – 31 October 2026
For AI Product, Service and Agent Developers
With Particular Focus on Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs)
Week ending Saturday 31 October 2026 | Published by IAAD | www.iaadai-agent.org
Webinar and Podcast Update As indicated in a previous newsletter, we have discontinued our twice-monthly webinars. Articles on the most important and urgent issues are available on Alan Ross's LinkedIn profile, and videos are available on our YouTube channel @AIGrandad999.alanross and on our 10 language channels (e.g. Spanish, French, Hindi, Swahili, Arabic, Bangla, Chinese, Russian, Serbian, Indonesian ]where there are now over 25 long and 12 short videos on each channel covering the AI and technology disruptions that will affect your country. We encourage you to view and share these with your networks and to ask them to subscribe so they are notified whenever a new video is uploaded. We have now signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the prestigious Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Sustainable Development (CAISD), based in South Africa, which applies artificial intelligence to sustainable development in Africa. Its work spans agriculture, mining, governance, environment and healthcare, and it works with a consortium of African partner universities and international partners. We have agreed to cooperate so we can extend our activities across the 54 African nations while continuing to support and inform other regions across the Global South. Check out the link below, which shows the recent audio podcast and AFRICAST video podcast that we have done through CAISD. CAISD podcasts and videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9m_MM9O0Mkzw0cKXcswaxw The audio podcast outlines how countries can fund AI adoption, and the in-depth video interview podcasts are wide-ranging, covering important issues of relevance to all countries. Discussions are ongoing, but it is likely that we will do one podcast each month focused on the 54 African countries and one each month for a global audience covering Asia, Africa and Latin America, as well as audio podcasts on various topics. The topics discussed, whether in the African podcast or the global podcast, will be relevant for all countries in the Global South. This Week's Key Developments A regional sweep of the week from Sunday 25 October to Saturday 31 October 2026, with developments from Africa, Asia and Latin America, plus two global stories with strong Global South relevance. Key points only below; follow the source links for the full story. AFRICA 1. TALENT NATION AIMS TO TRAIN 1 MILLION AFRICAN AI ENGINEERS Iyinoluwa (Iyin) Aboyeji, co-founder of Andela and Flutterwave, has launched Talent Nation, a startup that trains African AI engineers and places them with companies around the world, with the aim of training one million engineers over the next ten years (reported 28 and 29 October). It has raised an undisclosed preseed round co-led by Enza Capital and London-based LocalGlobe, with Future Africa, Kaleo Ventures, Ajim Capital, Solving.org and Accelerate Africa also taking part. IHS Towers is named as a client. Trainees pay nothing upfront. Client companies pay for the engineers they hire, that revenue funds new trainees, and employed engineers later help pay for future cohorts. Candidates take an online test and then in-person trials; the strongest are placed with clients immediately, while others join 3-, 6- or 12-month programmes that combine projects, internships and work experience. Its predecessor, Learn2Earn, has received over 63,000 applications, assessed over 32,000 candidates and admitted about 1,400 fellows (under 3% of applicants) across nine campuses in six cities. In February, Learn2Earn partnered with the Digital Bridge Institute to train AI engineers in support of Nigeria's 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) programme. No detailed timetable for the one million target has been published. Why this matters for IAAD members: A growing pool of certified African AI engineers means more talent for startups to hire, and a route for developers to be trained and placed with international clients at no upfront cost. Startups can also approach such programmes as a source of skilled staff. Sources: iAfrica, 29 Oct 2026; Startup Researcher, 28 Oct 2026 2. SOUTH AFRICA'S REDRAFTED NATIONAL AI POLICY NOT EXPECTED BEFORE MARCH 2027 Jeanette Morwane, acting deputy director-general at the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies and the policy's project manager, told a South Africa–Finland AI dialogue in Pretoria that Cabinet approval to publish the revised policy for public comment is now expected no earlier than March 2027, months later than first promised (reported 31 October). The first draft was gazetted on 10 April 2026 and withdrawn on 26 April because its reference list contained fictitious sources. The drafting team must submit the revised policy and a discussion document to the minister by 30 November, followed by internal government consultations from December to February. A seven-member independent expert panel chaired by Wits University AI researcher Benjamin Rosman has submitted advisory notes, and the government drafting team includes the Presidency, the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation, the State Security Agency and the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition. An implementation road map is being drafted in parallel. Discussions centre on compute and data sovereignty and on "model sovereignty", meaning large language models that handle South Africa's official languages. Ms Morwane said significant investment in computing infrastructure is needed. Why this matters for IAAD members: The focus on "model sovereignty" points to future demand for models that work in South Africa's official languages. Developers building local-language models, and tools that check sources and citations, should follow the consultations in 2027. Source: iAfrica, 31 Oct 2026 3. LESOTHO DEVELOPING AN AI CHATBOT TO ADVISE FARMERS Lesotho's Minister of Information, Communications, Science, Technology and Innovation, Nthati Moorosi, announced at the opening of the third National Science, Technology and Innovation Week in Maseru that the government is building an AI chatbot to give farmers easier access to agricultural information and advice (reported 26 October). It is being developed with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition. The government is also upgrading high-performance computing at the Mohale's Hoek Data Centre, and a Research and Innovation Policy is awaiting approval. No launch date, languages or number of farmers to be served have yet been announced. Why this matters for IAAD members: Farmer advisory chatbots are a clear, repeatable product for developing countries. Developers should build tools that work by voice, in local languages and on basic phones, and offer them to agriculture ministries, cooperatives and NGOs. Source: iAfrica, 26 Oct 2026 4. HONEYWELL LAUNCHES INDUSTRIAL AI AT NIGERIA'S DANGOTE REFINERY Honeywell has launched Forge Plant Cognition, a new industrial AI platform built on NVIDIA and Dell Technologies capabilities, at the Dangote refinery in Lekki, Nigeria (reported 31 October). The platform is designed to improve productivity and profitability in complex industrial plants. Based on preliminary data, Honeywell estimates benefits of more than 29 US cents per barrel, or roughly US$60 million a year in gross operational benefits at full-capacity throughput. The estimate is not guaranteed and excludes implementation costs. The refinery's nameplate capacity is 650,000 barrels per day, and Honeywell is helping Dangote expand it to 1.4 million barrels per day by 2028. Why this matters for IAAD members: Even small efficiency gains in heavy industry are worth millions. Developers can build smaller, affordable tools for predictive maintenance, energy saving and process monitoring for the many mid-sized factories, mines and utilities that cannot afford large platforms. Source: iAfrica, 31 Oct 2026 ASIA 1. INDIA'S 10,000-GPU TENDER FOR SHARED AI COMPUTE CLOSES India's Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), under the Ministry of Electronics and IT, closed submissions on 29 October and was scheduled to open technical bids on 30 October in its IndiaAI Mission tender to empanel providers of up to 10,000 AI compute units (GPUs, TPUs and other accelerators) over five years. It follows Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw's announcement on 11 October that 10,000 more GPUs would be added to the mission's shared compute pool. Clusters of 4,000, 1,000 or 512 units must each be housed in a single data centre in India, for model training, fine-tuning, inference and other AI workloads. Intended users include ministries and departments, academia, research institutions, startups and industry. Reports of the minister's announcement say 3,000 units are reserved for government and public-interest work and 7,000 offered to companies. More than 38,000 GPUs have already been added to the IndiaAI compute platform through earlier rounds and offered at subsidised rates, although startups and enterprises still report waits of several months for high-end capacity. Why this matters for IAAD members: More subsidised GPUs means lower costs for training and fine-tuning. Indian startups should prepare to apply when the new capacity comes online, and developers elsewhere should watch for similar schemes, such as the World Bank's shared compute initiative announced last week. Sources: Elets CIO, 30 Oct 2026; MediaNama, 13 Oct 2026 2. INDIA'S BIHAR STATE APPROVES ITS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE POLICY 2026 The Cabinet of Bihar approved the Bihar Artificial Intelligence Policy 2026 on Wednesday 28 October to promote AI-based governance, innovation and digital enterprises. Additional Chief Secretary Arvind Chaudhary said it offers financial incentives for AI companies, global capability centres, startups and digital enterprises, including capital investment and interest subsidies, support for cloud computing, lease rental and electricity charge support, employment generation incentives and SGST reimbursement. The policy also promotes AI applications in agriculture, healthcare, education, manufacturing and urban services. At a review of the draft policy on 22 October, the state government set a target of AI training for 500,000 (5 lakh) students over five years, with a major AI event each year for the next five years. Why this matters for IAAD members: Cloud support, interest subsidies and employment incentives lower the cost of starting an AI business in Bihar. Startups serving agriculture, health and education should study the eligibility rules as soon as they are published. Sources: UNI India, 28 Oct 2026; NewKerala, 22 Oct 2026 LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN 1. MICROSOFT BACKS LATAM GPT, THE REGION'S OPEN LANGUAGE MODEL Microsoft and Chile's National Centre for Artificial Intelligence (CENIA) have signed a two-year memorandum of understanding to support Latam GPT, the first large open language model created in and for Latin America and the Caribbean (announced 28 to 29 October). It was signed by Juan Lavista Ferres, Microsoft corporate vice president, chief data scientist and director of its AI for Good Lab, and Álvaro Soto, director of CENIA. In the first phase Microsoft will provide US$250,000 in Azure cloud credits, usable until February 2027, for Latam GPT's computing infrastructure and operations, together with joint research and technical support from its AI for Good Lab. The partners will also develop joint case studies in education, public services and health. Latam GPT, presented in February 2026, was built with more than 300,000 million tokens of Spanish and Portuguese text, with around 60 institutions from 15 countries taking part. Its promoters say Spanish and Portuguese make up only about 4% and 2% of the data used to train large AI models. The agreement supports development; it is not yet a finished application for businesses or users. Why this matters for IAAD members: An open foundation model trained on Spanish and Portuguese lets developers build local applications without depending entirely on foreign models. Developers should test it for customer service, public-service and education tools. Sources: CENIA, 29 Oct 2026; TeleSemana, 30 Oct 2026; CNN Chile 2. MEXICO TECH WEEK 2026 PUTS AI AT THE CENTRE The fourth Mexico Tech Week is running from 26 October to 1 November 2026 across Mexico City, with more than 500 events and about 30,000 expected attendees. Tecnológico de Monterrey is the strategic partner. AI activities include an AI House dedicated to AI and business applications, and the AI for Corporates Challenge, a competition in which AI startups present solutions to real company problems. On 27 October the AI House brought together investors from SoftBank, Kaszek and General Atlantic to discuss AI investment and funding trends in Latin America. Organisers say they want to show that Mexico can create AI, not only consume it. Why this matters for IAAD members: Corporate challenges are a direct route to paying customers. Developers in Mexico and across the region should enter such challenges and use investor sessions to learn what funders are backing. Sources: ADN40, 13 Oct 2026; DPL News GLOBAL 1. LIQUID AI RELEASES SMALL OPEN MODELS THAT RUN ON PHONES AND LAPTOPS On 27 October, Liquid AI released LFM3, a family of six open-weight models of about 2 billion parameters covering text, vision, audio, combined ("omni") input and decision tasks, all built on one shared base model. The models are available on Hugging Face, the Liquid AI Playground and the Liquid AI API. The main LFM3-1.7B model has a 256,000-token context window and needs about 1 GB of memory at 4-bit precision, so it can run on ordinary laptops and phones. The LFM Open License v1.0 allows free commercial use for organisations with less than US$10 million in annual revenue; larger organisations need a separate agreement. Performance figures so far are vendor-reported, and independent evaluations had not been published at release. Why this matters for IAAD members: Free commercial use below US$10 million in revenue covers almost every startup in developing countries. Developers can build offline voice, vision and agent tools for low-cost devices, but should test performance for their own use cases first. Sources: Unite.AI, 27 Oct 2026; MarkTechPost, 27 Oct 2026; i-SCOOP 2. TWO IN THREE LEARNERS USE AI CHATBOTS TO PREPARE FOR EXAMS, OXFORD SURVEY FINDS A new Oxford University Press report, Digital Learning: Insights from the Classroom, covering South Africa, Brazil, the UK and Hong Kong, found that 66% of learners use AI chatbots to prepare for exams (reported 29 October). Most learners see chatbots as fair for revision, planning and generating ideas, but not for doing the work itself. Among teachers, 82% use AI chatbots for research, 74% to create resources, 66% for administration and 56% for marking; only 3% never use them. The device gap is widest in South Africa, where 18% of learners reported having no digital device in at least one setting, compared with 13% in the UK and 4% in Brazil. The report summary did not give the sample size. Why this matters for IAAD members: Learners and teachers are a large market for revision, marking and resource-creation tools. Developers should design for low-cost and shared devices, and build tools that support learning rather than doing the work for students. Source: iAfrica, 29 Oct 2026 Not yet an IAAD member? These newsletters and other services and downloads will soon be available only to IAAD members. Join now. IAAD supports AI entrepreneurs and developers building AI products and services across the developing world, promoting the new profession of AI entrepreneur and unlocking the potential of millions of unemployed graduates and knowledge workers. Free weekly newsletter of opportunities, free downloads of 5 AI books in 31 languages, and free lists of products and services needed for a 2.2 billion market coming online soon. Membership from EUR 5/year for LMIC members; students free. Visit https://iaadai-agent.org to find out more. 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