Mauritius’s AI Ascent: A Vision for a Centre of Excellence in the Digital Age
The Future Is Now
Let us build a Mauritius where talent thrives, innovation flourishes, and ethical AI becomes our global signature
AI – Pic – LinkedIn
By Sameer Sharma
In an era marked by rapid technological advancements, small nations like Mauritius face a crucial decision: to remain passive consumers of global innovation or to emerge as agile, forward-thinking pioneers.
With artificial intelligence (AI) reshaping industries from healthcare to finance, Mauritius stands at a crossroads, offering a unique opportunity to leverage its strategic advantages — a bilingual workforce, a robust financial ecosystem, and geographic connectivity — to become a regional AI innovation hub. However, this vision relies heavily on the deliberate cultivation of home-grown talent and the creation of an ecosystem where cutting-edge solutions can thrive. For decades now, pundits have been giving high-level speeches around turning Mauritius into all kinds of hubs in vain. The last AI roadmap Mauritius published almost a decade ago had a vision but no implementation strategy. The following analysis focuses on the ‘how’.
The Imperative for Local AI Mastery
The financial sector in Mauritius, including its offshore industry, already grapples with complex challenges such as detecting sophisticated fraud, conducting accurate ‘Know Your Customer’ checks, combating money laundering, and managing credit risk. While basic tools and systems are in place, the application of machine learning, and more specifically Generative AI solutions, has yet to take hold. Relying predominantly on external solutions risks stifling local innovation and perpetuating a cycle of dependency, making it imperative to build domestic expertise to make informed “build versus buy” decisions. Mauritian fintech firms, while unlikely to lead the world in developing foundational models from scratch, have the potential to add significant value by leveraging Generative AI and traditional machine learning solutions in real-world local and regional use cases in a cost-effective and responsible manner. Thus, Mauritian machine learning engineers and application developers can design cost-effective solutions by leveraging foundational models that may need fine-tuning to suit specific tasks. We do not need to reinvent the wheel. We just need to know how to use it.
Pillars of the AI Centre of Excellence
Talent Development: From Theory to Practice
Mauritius boasts a small foundation in mathematics and statistics. However, bridging the gap between theory and application is essential. An AI Centre of Excellence (CoE) could prioritize hands-on, industry-aligned training. By partnering with global education firms, the CoE can design curricula focused on practical skills such as data engineering, model development, model deployment (MLOps/LLMOps), and cloud infrastructure management.
Mentorship Networks
The value proposition of any CoE lies in connecting students with both local and global AI professionals, ensuring knowledge transfer and real-world relevance. The CoE could also promote apprenticeships, embedding trainees within banks, healthcare providers, and logistics firms to solve operational challenges while reducing hiring risks for employers. Mentors bring the real-world experience the students need to deliver on real-world projects. Essentially, students would be given the opportunity to work on real-world projects with mentor support, allowing them to build and showcase their work portfolio. Companies get cheap labour initially to work on their pain points. Over time, companies get to work with their future employees or business partners.
Solving Local and Regional Problems
The CoE, in collaboration with or as part of the Bank of Mauritius Innovation Hub, could pilot AI solutions tailored to the financial sector’s specific challenges. Use cases include: Anti-Money Laundering (AML): Implementing models to detect suspicious transactions in real time. Credit Risk Modeling: Leveraging machine learning to evaluate diverse data sources. Regulatory Compliance: Creating transparent AI tools for evolving regulations. Customer Interaction Tools: Developing virtual assistants to enhance customer experiences. Copilot Tools: Deploying AI solutions to augment human productivity by automating routine tasks. Beyond finance, the CoE can drive innovation in tourism (personalized visitor experiences), healthcare (diagnostic support systems), and logistics (smart port management). Government services are full of repeatable tasks that are crying for automation and significant cost savings. In a nutshell, the Government itself is a massive business opportunity.Read More… Become a Subscriber
Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 7 March 2025
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