Closing the A.I. Gap Among High-Income Countries, Emerging Markets, and Developing Economies
A discussion on the global implications of A.I. and approaches to ensuring more equitable access.
In September 2025, Columbia Global Center Amman hosted Professor Yanis Ben Amor, Executive Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at the Climate School, Columbia University, for a public talk titled Closing the A.I. Gap Among High-Income Countries, Emerging Markets, and Developing Economies.
Professor Ben Amor shared insights on the global implications of A.I. and approaches to ensuring more equitable access. While A.I. technologies, particularly Large Language Models such as ChatGPT, offer numerous opportunities for enhancing education, research, and innovation, their widespread adoption and effective utilization require substantial resources, infrastructure, and expertise. This discrepancy in resources between developed and developing countries could widen the gap between their respective universities, and their ability to use or develop these A.I. technologies.
The event, in partnership with the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, examined how the availability of computational power, data availability, talent readiness, and financial resources all play a crucial role in determining the capacity to train and deploy advanced A.I. models. It also suggests solutions, particularly for developers when designing, developing, or deploying A.I. models, to prevent a widening digital divide brought by A.I. between the Global South and the Global North.
