ITU Deputy Warns AI 'Opportunity Divide' Could Deepen Inequality

Africa and Latin America together account for just 3.3 percent of the world's data center capacity, and 2.2 billion people still have no internet access at all. Those are the two numbers the deputy secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, Tomas Lamanauskas, used in an interview with Al Jazeera to frame what he calls the AI "opportunity divide."

"I think the AI divide is really the big concern because it's really not just about the digital divide," Lamanauskas said. Because AI touches healthcare, education and industry, he added, "a great divide could really mean an opportunity divide, and really could deepen the socioeconomic divide."

The adoption numbers are already pulling apart. Roughly 29 percent of working-age people in developed countries use generative AI, against 16 percent in developing ones. Only 7 percent of African languages are represented in AI translation tools. Lamanauskas put the price of catching up at "an estimated $2.8 trillion in investment by 2030."

On jobs, he cited projections of 90 million displaced against 170 million created, with 40 percent of workplace skills shifting by the end of the decade. The net is positive; the churn is not. It lands in the same week as a Fortune op-ed we covered arguing AI tutors will reach every child while only the wealthy keep human teachers, part of a broader run of inequality-framed AI stories in our jobs tracker.

Lamanauskas was not calling for a pause. "AI is here to stay, and AI is here to transform our lives," he said. "The way forward is really to invest to make sure that the AI benefits everyone, to recognise and acknowledge the fears and anxieties that people feel."