AI could transform global inequalities or ‘widen the gap’, warns Bill Gates

AI could transform global inequalities or 'widen the gap', warns Bill Gates. Jump to content

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AI could transform global inequalities or ‘widen the gap’, warns Bill Gates

Announcing a $1bn investment, Gates says AIs will have to learn hundreds of new languages and customs if they are to serve the world equally

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Paul NukiGlobal Health Security Editor

Show biography

!Paul Nuki

Paul Nuki is Global Health Security Editor at The Telegraph. A senior journalist and former editor at the Sunday Times, he leads coverage on global security threats including epidemics, biosecurity, and international health crises. He has also written and reported extensively on the conflict in Israel and the Middle East.

Published

15 September 2026 3:25pm BST

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!AI is already revolutionising global development in a multitude of ways: from pharmacology to education and agriculture

*AI is already revolutionising global development in a multitude of ways: from pharmacology to education and agriculture

Credit

: AFP*

Paul NukiGlobal Health Security Editor

Show biography

!Paul Nuki

Paul Nuki is Global Health Security Editor at The Telegraph. A senior journalist and former editor at the Sunday Times, he leads coverage on global security threats including epidemics, biosecurity, and international health crises. He has also written and reported extensively on the conflict in Israel and the Middle East.

Published

15 September 2026 3:25pm BST

New technologies bring with them both threats and promises and it is going to be no different with artificial intelligence (AI).

While headlines around the globe have been dominated this week with warnings that AI could wipe out humanity, it also holds the prospect of making our lives longer, healthier and infinitely more prosperous.

The two can be true at once. The industrial revolution ushered in an age of health and wealth that was far beyond the imagination of those who lived before it, doubling lifespans globally and dramatically suppressing deaths from malnutrition and infectious disease.

But industrialisation also all but ended the rural idle in the west and condemned millions to urban slums and harsh repetitive labour. It gave us two world wars and the holocaust, while nuclear power has brought us to the brink of annihilation at least once.

Many are now predicting AI will usher in change every bit as profound, albeit in a much shorter time span; one measured in years rather than decades or centuries.

It is against this backdrop that the Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates announced a $1 billion investment in AI on Tuesday to “help build and deliver equitable AI that improves health and opportunity”.

The announcement comes as the Gates Foundation launches its 10th annual​​​​​​Goalkeepers Report, which tracks the world’s progress towards the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.

!The Gates Foundation has launched its 10th annual Goalkeepers Report, "Make This Matter: AI, Equity, and the Choice We Can't Delay", which tracks the world's progress towards the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals

*The Gates Foundation has launched its 10th annual Goalkeepers Report, “Make This Matter: AI, Equity, and the Choice We Can’t Delay”, which tracks the world’s progress towards the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals

Credit

: REUTERS*

“I’ve lived through waves of change that felt, in the moment, like the most significant thing happening on earth \[but] nothing has felt like this”, said Mr Gates in an essay explaining the investment.

“AI is different: a technology moving faster, reaching more people than anything before it. Because of that, no one knows exactly what the future will look like even five or ten years from now, including me”.

AI is already revolutionising global development in all sorts of ways. In medicine, AI-driven imaging and image reading techniques are making diagnosis of everything from fractures to tumours quicker, cheaper and more accurate.

In pharmacology, it has ushered in a new age of molecule discovery – the first since the advent of antibiotics – and drugs that are specific, not just to particular pathogens or conditions, but to the genomes of individual patients.

In education, it is enabling teachers to identify the specific learning needs of individual students, while at the same time giving those same students access to knowledge that just 50 years ago was unimaginable.

Google’s original mission, set in 1998, “to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” is now all but a reality for anyone with a smartphone, a data connection and the education to use it.

In agriculture - historically the biggest driver of good health - AI and its related technologies are also creating dramatic change. Weather forecasting has moved from an art to a science, planting and harvesting machinery operates autonomously on many farms in the west and genetic engineering is creating more bountiful and resilient crops.

But for those with an eye on the Sustainable Development Goals, the worry is that the AI revolution will leave many behind, further aggravating inequalities. This is not just a moral dilemma but a practical one; one that could spark a new age of discontent, conflict and destabilising migrations unless addressed.

!A health worker examines a patient at a rural clinic in the Democratic Republic of Congo

*A health worker examines a patient at a rural clinic in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Credit

: Bloomberg*

“AI could be a great equaliser, or \[it could] widen the gap”, says Mr Gates. “This is not a long-range prediction. It’s a present-tense choice”.

“We can harness AI for good. But it won’t happen by accident. After all, the market is an extraordinary engine of innovation, but a terrible guarantor of equal opportunity.

“With AI, the gap could grow even faster … That is what makes this moment so urgent. Things are changing rapidly, and the window to shape who benefits from AI, and how soon, is short”.

The key issue holding back the deployment of AI in the developing world revolves around the availability of local data and, in turn, the ability for the technology to scale in environments very different from where