By Huan Xiang
Over the past months, China’s AI model DeepSeek has gained global attention, reigniting discussions on inclusive AI development and improving access to AI services. As the wave of AI accelerates, bridging the global AI divide demands governance solutions, collaborative responses to challenges, and inclusive progress.
Every technological revolution brings both guiding stars and hidden reefs. “In our days, everything seems pregnant with its contrary,” noted Karl Marx during the Industrial Revolution. “The newfangled sources of wealth, by some strange weird spell, are turned into sources of want.”
The “paradox of wealth” takes on a new form in the era of AI. Today, the global AI divide manifests in R&D investment, hardware resources, talent pools, and application capabilities.
In a joint report, the International Labour Organization and a UN office on technology revealed that over $300 billion is spent annually on technology to enhance computing capacity, but these investments are seen mainly in higher-income nations. It creates a disparity in access to infrastructure and skills development that puts developing countries and their homegrown start-ups at a “severe disadvantage.”
Africa, for instance, holds less than 1 percent of global data center capacity. The International Monetary Fund’s AI Preparedness Index quantifies this gap: in 2023, developed nations scored 0.68, while emerging markets and low-income countries scored 0.46 and 0.32, respectively.
International observers warn that the AI divide risks creating extreme polarization, where a few nations reap technological gains while developing countries are left to supply raw data.
Policies made by certain nations are exacerbating this divide. Some advanced economies seek to monopolize AI advantages, build exclusive blocs, erect tech barriers, and sabotage global AI supply chains. Imposing hierarchies and bloc confrontation in AI development entrenches technological stratification, stripping developing nations of their rights to progress.
As Felix Dapare Dakora, former president of the African Academy of Sciences, pointed out, these measures only undermine international cooperation, shifting AI development from collaboration toward decoupling.
The widening divide is a reminder that while technology empowers growth, it does not inherently ensure equitable distribution and inclusive development. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres once warned that the world “must never allow AI to stand for ‘advancing inequality’.”
To harness AI for good, humanity needs not just smarter algorithms but broader wisdom and vision. Bridging the divide requires global solidarity, ensuring no nation is left behind, and making AI a truly inclusive engine of global development.
Countries should focus on capacity building, and promote open sharing of AI technology, talent, and infrastructure.
The power of technology lies not just in upgrading tools but in igniting endogenous momentum. All relevant parties should actively engage in North-South, South-South, and trilateral cooperation to help developing countries strengthen AI and digital infrastructure connectivity, enhance AI literacy, and cultivate talent, thereby building an ecosystem for AI development.
A greater digital inclusion can be achieved by further universality of networks, computing power, and data, providing low-threshold, low-cost AI services to small and medium-sized enterprises and the general public.
As noted by Doreen Bogdan-Martin, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, global coordination should be secured “in building safe and inclusive AI accessible to all.”
The international community should uphold equity and inclusiveness, and guarantee equal rights to AI development and utilization.
At the AI Action Summit held in Paris, countries, regions and international organizations, including France, China, India, and the EU, endorsed the Statement on Inclusive and Sustainable Artificial Intelligence for People and the Planet, which aims to help the Global South strengthen AI capacity building.
AI polarization is a common concern for all parties. The international community must reject walls, decoupling, and discrimination, co-creating an open, inclusive, beneficial and non-discriminatory AI ecosystem where all nations enjoy equal rights and opportunities, and follow equal rules.
Countries should follow a people-centered approach, and build AI ethical governance frameworks.
Data security, algorithmic discrimination, privacy protection, and intellectual property rights are related to the security and ethical issues of AI development, which demand global risk assessment and early warning systems.
While ethical principles are widely debated, binding laws, treaties, and governance remain nascent. Respecting national differences, the world must forge a consensus to align AI with global social responsibility.
As a responsible AI power, China actively bridges the divide. It has proposed the Global AI Governance Initiative and the AI Capacity-Building Action Plan for Good and for All. It has promoted the adoption by consensus of a resolution on strengthening international cooperation in AI capacity-building at the 78th United Nations General Assembly, and taken the lead in advocating for helping the Global South benefit equally in AI development.
China and Zambia co-hosted the meeting of the Group of Friends for International Cooperation on AI Capacity-building at the UN Headquarters in New York. It launched the China-Laos AI Innovation Cooperation Center, and partnered with Cambodia to help farmers with AI-driven precision planting.
These tangible actions help more developing countries become stakeholders, not bystanders, in the AI revolution. All nations may cooperate to safeguard security and advance growth.
The ultimate measure of technological progress lies in its impact on human society. As AI, an important force driving a new round of technological revolution and industrial reform, is reshaping the world, nations must unite together, using algorithms to solve shared challenges, and ensuring the intelligent revolution illuminates their shared future.
（The author is commenter on international affairs, People’s Daily）
