New Delhi, February 18 (IANS). American tech giant Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it will invest $50 billion by the end of this decade to promote Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the countries of the Global South.
Brad Smith, Microsoft vice chair and president, and Natasha Crampton, Microsoft vice president and chief responsible AI officer, said in a blog post that AI use in the Global North is nearly double that of the Global South.
“This gap continues to widen. This inequality impacts not only national and regional economic growth, but also whether AI can deliver on its broad promise to expand opportunity and prosperity around the world,” they wrote.
Smith said that the ‘India AI Impact Summit’ has done the right thing by keeping this challenge at the center of its agenda.
He said, “For more than a century, unequal access to electricity has deepened the growing economic gap between the global North and South. If we do not take urgent action, the growing AI gap will worsen this inequality in the coming century.”
Microsoft has announced the launch of ‘Elevate for Educators’ program in India, which aims to enhance the capabilities of 20 lakh teachers working in over 2,00,000 schools, vocational institutes and higher education institutions.
“Our goal is to help the country’s teaching workforce confidently lead into an AI-based future. This program will be run in partnership with India’s national education and workforce training authorities, providing equal AI opportunities to 80 lakh students,” the company said.
In the last fiscal year alone, Microsoft invested more than $8 billion in data center infrastructure serving the Global South. This includes new infrastructure in India, Mexico and countries in Africa, South America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
Additionally, at 24 million, the Indian developer community is the second largest national community on GitHub, where developers learn about AI and collaborate with developers from around the world.
“The Indian community is the fastest growing among the top 30 largest economies, with a growth rate of over 26 per cent every year since 2020 and a jump of over 36 per cent in annual growth till the fourth quarter of 2025,” Microsoft said.
–IANS
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