AI Hyper-Scaling Digital Inequality

Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming part of everyday infrastructure–in some places. It helps write emails and software code, filters job applications, powers recommendation systems, and is increasingly being integrated into education, healthcare, finance, and public administration. Industry leaders talk about “AI for everyone,” while governments rush to publish national AI strategies and build sovereign compute.Yet over the past decade, working on digital inclusion and digital literacy projects in regions from Europe to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, I’ve seen the same pattern repeat: each new wave of “transformative” technology lands on a landscape already stratified by connectivity, skills, and institutional capacity. The current AI wave is no exception. If anything, it amplifies those underlying fractures.Still, some countries areexploring ways of participating in AI development without directly replicating the frontier model race dominated by the United