In November 2025, Anthropic, the Government of Rwanda, and African technology training provider ALX jointly launched Chidi — an AI learning companion built on Claude — and began deploying it within Rwanda’s national education system. Rwanda’s Ministry of ICT and Innovation and Ministry of Education formally endorsed the deployment, making it one of the largest AI-in-education rollouts on the African continent. Chidi functions as a Socratic mentor, guiding learners through questions rather than providing direct answers, and is designed for use by school students, university graduates, young professionals, and teachers who use it for lesson planning. ALX, which trains over 200,000 students and young professionals, extends the tool’s reach across several African countries. Within two weeks of launch, learners had engaged in over 1,100 conversations and nearly 4,000 learning sessions, with nine in ten users reporting positive experiences.
Who it affects: School students and teachers within Rwanda’s national education system, along with young professionals and graduates enrolled in ALX programs across Africa. The Rwandan government is deploying the tool directly through its education ministries rather than through a voluntary scheme, giving it institutional backing.
What is notably missing: The deployment is a ministry-endorsed program, not a legal mandate — participation by schools is not required by law and no binding curriculum standard is defined. Funding terms and duration are not publicly specified. The initiative does not address the broader gap between AI-fluent and AI-unaware citizens outside the school and ALX programme population. No teacher training obligation precedes the rollout.