As a major catalyst for the global health equity community, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced it has chosen approximately 50 projects for funding, with a focus on leveraging AI-enabled large language models (LLMs) to enhance health equity and development solutions globally.
The foundation’s initiative emerged from its call for proposals to address global inequality, targeting researchers and innovators in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). These projects aim to responsibly and safely apply AI-driven LLM technology to tackle challenging health and development issues. The goal is to ensure that this technology is developed and tested in collaboration with LMIC experts to create a solid evidence base for its equitable application.
The selected projects, originating from 17 LMICs, will receive up to $100,000 each to support their research, totaling $5 million in grants. The outcomes of these projects will be presented at the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting.
The Gates Foundation emphasizes the importance of AI being developed in a way that serves the needs of local communities, and it seeks to collaborate globally to make AI benefits accessible to all while upholding safety, ethics, and equity.
