The Gates Foundation and OpenAI are launching a $50 million partnership to help African countries use artificial intelligence to strengthen health systems and respond to the impact of international aid cuts, Bill Gates said Wednesday.
The initiative, known as Horizon1000, will work with African governments to identify practical uses of AI in healthcare, beginning with Rwanda. Gates announced the partnership in a blog post and discussed its goals in an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos.
“In poorer countries with enormous health worker shortages and lack of health systems infrastructure, AI can be a game changer in expanding access to quality care,” Gates said.
He said AI could help reverse recent setbacks in global health outcomes following sharp reductions in international aid. According to the Gates Foundation, global development assistance for health declined by nearly 27% in 2025 compared with 2024, after the United States cut funding early last year, followed by other major donors including Britain and Germany. The reductions were followed by the first rise in preventable child deaths this century.
“Using innovation, using AI, I think we can get back on track,” Gates told Reuters. “Our commitment is that that revolution will at least happen in the poor countries as quickly as it happens in the rich countries.”
Horizon1000 aims to reach 1,000 primary healthcare clinics and surrounding communities across several African countries by 2028. Gates noted that in some countries there is only one doctor for every 50,000 people, even in large urban areas, far below ratios in high-income nations.
The Gates Foundation has already backed several AI-related health initiatives, and Rwanda last year launched an AI health hub in Kigali. Rwanda’s minister of information and communications technology and innovation, Paula Ingabire, said the focus would be on using AI responsibly to ease the workload of healthcare workers, improve care quality and reach more patients.
Gates said the initiative is likely to prioritize maternal health and HIV care, using AI to provide guidance to patients before they reach clinics, particularly where language barriers exist. Once patients arrive, AI tools could reduce administrative work and improve access to medical histories and appointments.
“A typical visit, we think, can be about twice as fast and much better quality,” Gates said.
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