London
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n Microsoft says it is on track to invest $50 billion by the end of the decade to help bring artificial intelligence to lower-income countries, as concerns mount over the technology\u2019s potential to deepen inequality.\n <\/p>\n
\n The announcement was made Wednesday at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, where leading tech executives, government officials and AI researchers are debating how to use AI to solve real-world problems.\n <\/p>\n
\n Policymakers globally are increasingly worried that the unequal adoption of AI risks widening income and development gaps between rich and poor countries. In December, the United Nations Development Project called for global cooperation on standards and safety to ensure the technology \u201cfunctions as a shared public good rather than a concentrated advantage.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n At the summit, Microsoft likewise expressed the need for cross-border partnerships to prevent poorer countries from being left behind.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe need to act with urgency to address the growing AI divide,\u201d Microsoft president Brad Smith and chief responsible AI officer Natasha Crampton said in a joint statement<\/a>. \u201cArtificial intelligence is diffusing at an impressive speed, but its adoption around the world remains profoundly uneven.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The company\u2019s $50 billion commitment to developing economies by 2030 compares with the roughly $80 billion<\/a> that Microsoft invested into data centers last year alone, more than half of which was directed to a single economy: the United States.\n <\/p>\n \n HTML embed code:\n<\/p>\n \n A recent Microsoft report found that AI usage in the global north, a catch-all term for developed and high-income countries, is roughly twice that of the global south \u2014 and growing.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThis disparity impacts not only national and regional economic growth, but whether AI can deliver on its broader promise of expanding opportunity and prosperity around the world,\u201d Smith and Crampton said.\n <\/p>\n \n They warned that, just as unequal access to electricity has exacerbated a growing economic gap between the global north and south, without urgent action, the AI divide could perpetuate that disparity in the century ahead.\n <\/p>\n \n On the other hand, the technology could be used positively to help poor countries leapfrog older development pathways. \u201cIf AI is deployed broadly and used well by a young and growing population, it offers a real prospect for catch-up economic growth for the Global South,\u201d said Smith and Crampton.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt might even provide the biggest such opportunity of the 21st century,\u201d the pair said.\n <\/p>\n \n Microsoft\u2019s $50 billion investment will, among other things, help to build the data centers crucial to providing the computing power needed to run AI models. Extending internet access is another focus.\n <\/p>\n \n Only about 36% of Africa\u2019s population had broadband internet access in 2022, according to the World Bank<\/a>. That compares with some 90% of US households, official figures<\/a> show.\n <\/p>\n \n The AI Impact Summit, hosted by India\u2019s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, highlights the country\u2019s ambition to position itself as an AI leader in the global south.\n <\/p>\n \n High-profile attendees include Sam Altman of OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Google CEO Sundar Pichai who is due to deliver a keynote address on Friday.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"London \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Microsoft says it is on track to invest $50 billion by the end of the decade…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-476059","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}