Data and AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most significant technological breakthroughs in decades, with the potential to transform economies, services, jobs, and development outcomes. Yet as the world moves rapidly toward an AI-driven future, critical gaps remain: more than 2 billion people remain offline, many lack affordable devices, data, or digital skills, and AI adoption is highly uneven—less than one percent of ChatGPT usage comes from low-income countries. Without deliberate action, these divides risk widening, leaving many communities, governments, and workers behind.

The World Bank Group is addressing these disparities by supporting countries to build the strategic foundations and scalable solutions needed to harness data and AI for development impact. This includes strengthening data ecosystems, expanding access to computing and AI infrastructure, such as sustainable data centers and scalable cloud solutions, and establishing governance frameworks to guide responsible AI adoption. By bridging digital and AI divides, these efforts make it possible for data and AI to deliver inclusive, sustainable development while helping people gain digital skills and access new job opportunities.

A key focus of this work is small AI: practical, affordable AI solutions that run on everyday devices, designed to meet local development challenges in environments where infrastructure and skills are limited. Across agriculture, health, and education, small AI is already delivering measurable results—from pest diagnosis on basic smartphones to AI tutors improving learning outcomes—demonstrating how AI can work in the contexts where most people live and where governments must deliver services and economic opportunities at scale.

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The World Bank Group’s strategy centers on enabling countries to scale data and AI solutions while ensuring they are responsible, inclusive, and impactful. At the policy level, this involves aligning regulation, implementation, and governance frameworks to support responsible AI adoption, reduce barriers, and incentivize experimentation and scaling of practical AI solutions in priority sectors. These measures also help workers gain skills and take advantage of new digital job opportunities.

On the infrastructure side, the Bank helps governments expand computing capacity, data ecosystems, and specialized AI infrastructure, including sustainable data centers and scalable cloud solutions, so countries can adopt AI safely and efficiently. These foundations are critical for deploying both advanced AI systems and small AI applications that operate in low-connectivity, resource-constrained environments.

Across sectors, the Bank supports governments and the private sector in piloting, scaling, and learning from small AI applications that deliver measurable results. Farmers can diagnose crop pests using basic smartphones; health workers can screen for diseases without continuous broadband; students can benefit from lightweight AI tutors that improve learning outcomes.

Through this integrated approach—policy, infrastructure, and sector-focused application—the World Bank Group aims to ensure data and AI drive inclusive growth, improve public service delivery, create jobs, and expand opportunities for citizens, businesses, and governments alike.

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