Rwanda’s Health Intelligence Centre is the outcome of years of deliberate investment in the foundational elements that make up a strong national digital health backbone. Its launch by the Ministry of Health in April 2025 reflects a long-term strategy focused on reliable electricity and internet connectivity, digitized health facilities, a skilled community health workforce, and robust national electronic medical record and disease surveillance systems, alongside sustained efforts to reach underserved communities.
Built on these foundations, the Health Intelligence Centre is already delivering tangible public health value. It enables the government to better understand the drivers of maternal mortality, target HIV prevention resources more precisely, scale tuberculosis contact screening, and strengthen surveillance for disease outbreaks, including mpox. By transforming data that previously sat in fragmented and underused systems into timely, actionable insights, the Centre supports faster and more accurate decision-making from national level to the last mile.
Rwanda’s experience illustrates a core lesson highlighted by the Global Fund: sustainable digital health innovation depends on embedding new technologies within robust, resilient systems. Isolated digital tools and disease-specific platforms may attract attention through pilots, but they often increase costs, fragment national capacity, limit future innovation, and undermine public trust. In contrast, investment in shared infrastructure, data standards, skilled personnel, interoperable platforms, and aligned markets allows innovation to compound its benefits over time.
This approach creates the conditions for the responsible scaling of artificial intelligence in health systems. When AI is built on reliable data flows and aligned with national priorities, it can help detect health threats earlier, allocate resources more effectively, and improve outcomes across multiple health areas. Rwanda’s Health Intelligence Centre demonstrates how coherent public leadership and strong partnerships can turn digital health from experimentation into sustained impact.
As global leaders consider the future of AI in health, the Rwandan model underscores the importance of aligning technology investments with national strategies, public infrastructure, and long-term financing. AI tools are most effective when they strengthen existing systems rather than operate as standalone solutions. By integrating AI into country-led digital architectures and supporting them through public–private collaboration, governments and partners can move beyond short-term pilots toward scalable, country-owned systems that deliver measurable value and save lives.
