We are excited to introduce the GSMA Innovation Fund for Impactful AI (“the Fund”), designed to support small and growing enterprises in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) across Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The Fund aims to accelerate the adoption and scalability of AI-driven innovations that address critical local socio-economic and climate challenges.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has gained global attention for its transformative potential to tackle some of the world’s most pressing challenges. From precision agriculture and renewable energy to remote healthcare and financial inclusion, AI offers immense promise to drive meaningful impact.
Despite this potential, LMICs remain underserved in terms of resources and funding. Only a small fraction of global grants are directed towards locally-developed AI innovations in these regions. While there has been rapid growth in AI-driven technologies, much of this progress has not been tailored to address the unique needs of local populations in LMICs.
This highlights an urgent need to identify, test, and scale AI solutions that are not only impactful but also contextually relevant to the challenges faced by local communities.
The Fund seeks to bridge this gap by supporting innovative use cases, partnerships and business models that leverage AI and emerging technologies (e.g. mobile big data, IoT, remote sensing, computer vision, blockchain, and drones) alongside mobile technologies to create positive socio-economic and climate-related impacts.
Through our partnership with the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), selected enterprises will receive a comprehensive support package, including:
- Grant funding ranging from £100,000 to £250,000 for projects lasting 15 – 18 months
- Tailored venture building support to strengthen solutions and business models
- Facilitation of partnerships with mobile operators, public sector organisations, and other stakeholders
- Peer learning opportunities to exchange knowledge with other innovators
- Visibility and exposure through the GSMA’s global events, publications and online platforms, helping grantees connect with potential investors and partners
For more details on eligibility, funding, and the application process, please refer to our Terms and Conditions.
The Fund is sector-agnostic, with a special emphasis on applications leveraging one or more of the following:
- Contextual data generated by emerging technologies to train and deploy AI-driven products and services
- Predictive and generative AI innovations with demonstrable potential to scale and deliver measurable socio-economic or climate-related impacts
- Digital solutions across two key dimensions:
- Last-mile innovations: AI-driven solutions targeting low-income and vulnerable populations to address challenges in sectors such as HealthTech, AgriTech, ClimateTech, FinTech, or EdTech
- Deep-tech ecosystem innovations: Solutions such as multimodal large language models (LLMs), edge computing, machine learning and automatic speech recognition, which empower local and regional ecosystems to deploy AI technologies at scale
We invite forward-thinking companies to apply and become part of this initiative so that together we can harness the power of AI to improve lives, foster climate resilience and promote inclusive development across the globe. For more information on the Fund’s requirements and application process, click here.
The GSMA Innovation Fund for Impactful AI is funded by UK International Development from the
UK government, and is supported by the GSMA and its members. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK governments’ official policies.
