AI's 'opportunity divide' could deepen global inequality, UN official warns

Artificial intelligence (AI) risks widening the gap between rich and poor countries and deepening existing social and economic inequalities, a senior United Nations official has warned. He said developing countries face significant barriers to benefitting from the AI revolution.

Tomas Lamanauskas, deputy secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the UN agency for information and communication technologies, told Al Jazeera on the sidelines of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) World Investment Forum in Doha, Qatar, on Sunday that the concern is not just the digital divide but the AI divide, because AI has huge potential in health, education, public services, industries, agriculture and trade, so a great divide could mean an opportunity divide and could deepen the socioeconomic divide.

Lamanauskas said the disparities are already evident in digital infrastructure. Africa and Latin America together account for just 3.3 percent of global data centre capacity. He also said 2.2 billion people worldwide remain without internet access.

In a December 2025 report, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) cautioned that AI could trigger a new era of inequality between nations, reversing decades of progress in narrowing economic disparities. The report warned that countries with unreliable power, limited connectivity and a lack of technological skills risk missing out on the economic gains of AI.

Lamanauskas said bridging the digital infrastructure gap would require an estimated $2.8 trillion in investment by 2030. The divide is also evident in AI adoption: while approximately 29 percent of working-age people in developed countries use generative AI, that figure drops to 16 percent in developing nations.

He also gave figures on jobs. Citing estimates, he said the technology could displace 90 million jobs but also create 170 million new ones. However, even if the net impact is positive, many people will personally experience disruption, as an estimated 40 percent of workplace skills could change by 2030, he said.

Lamanauskas also pointed to language inequalities. He revealed that only seven percent of African languages are represented in AI translation tools, limiting access for millions of potential users.

According to the 2026 International AI Safety Report released in February, about one billion people use AI for a variety of tasks, including seeking guidance on medical health and writing. The report estimated that about 60 percent of jobs in advanced economies and 40 percent in emerging economies could be exposed to AI-related impacts.

Fazl Barez, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford specialising in AI safety and governance, told Al Jazeera that the fears are real. However, he cautioned that it is important to distinguish between AI automating tasks and replacing entire jobs; he said jobs involving routine cognitive work are particularly exposed, but the scale remains uncertain.