Uruguay’s public bodies have built eight AI projects with Microsoft during the lab’s first six months, but the partners haven’t said how many will enter regular use or who will pay for cloud computing once Microsoft’s credits run out. Three projects are finished, and five are due to finish in October, Microsoft and the state-backed Technological Laboratory of Uruguay (LATU) said Monday, 5 October.
Public Services, Private Cloud
The AI for Good Lab is a government partnership with Microsoft, led by LATU. It has about US$400,000 a year for three years, or about US$25,000 per project, LATU president Lucila Arboleya told Ámbito. Microsoft matches every dollar Uruguay invests with credits for its Azure cloud, said Elianne Elbaum, who runs Microsoft’s lab in Uruguay. Engineers from Microsoft build tools alongside staff from each institution.
The lab received 47 applications from 32 public bodies, approved 12 projects, trained 120 people and granted US$200,000 in cloud credits. Arboleya said the lab aimed to complete 16 projects a year. “When we opened this laboratory, we set out to have 16 projects a year, and now, six months later, we have reached eight,” she told the Montevideo daily la diaria.
The public Technological University of Uruguay (UTEC) uses drone images to identify palm trees that may face attacks by the red palm weevil. Another project, run with LATU, analyzes satellite images to distinguish fields of soy, sorghum and maize.
Six more projects focus on state services. The General Registry Directorate of the Ministry of Education and Culture is developing automated data extraction from electronic documents to speed up filings. Ceibal, the state education technology programme, built a chat assistant for its internal wiki, which contains more than 2,000 documents. The state power utility UTE is automating the drafting of tender documents.
The Hospital de Clínicas, a university hospital in Montevideo, is digitizing handwritten kidney dialysis patient records. The state audit court, the Tribunal de Cuentas, is getting a legal assistant to help draft reports. Agesic, the e-government agency under the presidency, is building an AI agent to help people find the correct online procedure.
State Data, Unreported Results
Each institution remains responsible for its data and for putting the tools to use. Arboleya told la diaria that each body signed a confidentiality agreement with Microsoft, and that the data remains under the control of the Uruguayan state. She said initial results show shorter processing times and fewer errors, but gave no figures.
Neither Microsoft nor LATU identified the three finished projects. The partners gave no figures for time or money saved and announced no launch date for the Agesic agent. They also haven’t said how many prototypes will enter regular use or who will pay for cloud computing after the lab’s credits end. Arboleya said the institutions, not the lab, implement the pilots.
Arboleya said some requests for complex equipment can take two years to result in delivery. “Any day you can cut from that process is extremely important,” she told Ámbito.
Expansion Without a Reported Scale-Up Plan
President Yamandú Orsi of the centre-left Broad Front coalition presented Uruguay as “a trusted regional hub” to develop, test and scale AI at an artificial intelligence dialogue hosted by the Inter-American Development Bank in New York on 22 September. His office said the remarks were part of a wider plan.
The partnership also includes the industry ministry, LATU, innovation agency Uruguay Innova, state telecom company Antel, Agesic, research agency ANII and development agency ANDE. A third group is due to start in November with ANDE, ANII, Antel and the postal service Correos. Microsoft said four more projects will start in February 2027; la diaria reported March. The lab hasn’t said how it will reach 16 projects in its first year.