Artificial intelligence can enable developing countries to achieve in a decade what might otherwise take a century, but only if governments move quickly to address gaps in electricity, internet connectivity, digital skills and institutional capacity, the World Bank has said.
The warning and opportunity was stated in the World Bank Group’s World Development Report 2026 titled ‘The Promise of Artificial Intelligence’.
The report said developing countries could benefit significantly from AI without necessarily building the large-scale models and data centres that currently dominate the global AI race.
Instead, the greatest gains could come from adapting smaller, lower-cost AI tools to local needs.
The report noted that only 4.5 percent of existing jobs in low and middle-income countries are at risk of automation from generative AI, compared with 14.2 percent in high-income countries.
However, the productivity opportunity is much larger. About 16.2 percent of jobs in developing economies could experience meaningful
This post was originally published on this site.
