UN telecom official urges investment to keep AI from widening global inequality

Countries lacking reliable digital infrastructure risk missing out on AI’s benefits across health, education and industry, a senior UN official warned on October 25. Speaking to Al Jazeera in Doha, International Telecommunication Union Deputy Secretary-General Tomas Lamanauskas called for investment and regulation to prevent an AI access gap from deepening economic inequality.

Lamanauskas spoke on the sidelines of the UN Conference on Trade and Development’s World Investment Forum. His concern reaches beyond whether people can get online: he described an “opportunity divide” in which unequal access to AI could limit countries’ ability to improve public services, agriculture, trade and other industries.

The infrastructure beneath AI access

The first barrier is the underlying digital network and computing infrastructure. Lamanauskas said 2.2 billion people worldwide remain without internet access. Africa and Latin America together account for just 3.3% of global data centre capacity, he added, illustrating how unevenly the physical infrastructure is distributed.

He estimated that closing the digital infrastructure gap would require $2.8 trillion in investment by 2030. That figure concerns the wider digital infrastructure shortfall, rather than a stated budget for AI systems alone. His proposed response combines infrastructure spending with education and regulation.

The warning follows a December 2025 UN Development Programme report that identified unreliable power, limited connectivity and insufficient technology skills as obstacles to benefiting from AI. That report cautioned that the technology could reverse progress in narrowing economic differences between nations, rather than automatically helping poorer countries catch up.

Connection is not the only barrier

Lamanauskas linked the adoption gap to people’s ability to be productive and compete for work. His argument is that unequal use has consequences beyond familiarity with a new tool: it can affect access to job-market opportunities and the ability to benefit from the technology.

Language support presents another barrier even where a connection is available. Lamanauskas said only 7% of African languages are represented in AI translation tools, limiting access for millions of potential users. His warning therefore covers both the infrastructure needed to reach tools and the languages those tools support.

Education is also part of his proposed response to disruption at work. Lamanauskas cited an estimate that 40% of workplace skills could change by 2030. That is a forecast of changing skill requirements, not a claim that the same share of jobs will disappear.

More jobs overall can still mean personal disruption

Lamanauskas cited estimates that AI could displace 90 million jobs while creating 170 million new ones. Even with a net gain, he warned, individuals would experience disruption. His distinction separates the overall employment balance from the consequences for people whose existing work or skills lose value.

Fazl Barez, an Oxford researcher specialising in AI safety and governance, made a related distinction in comments to Al Jazeera: automating tasks does not necessarily mean replacing entire jobs. He identified routine cognitive work as particularly exposed, while cautioning that the scale of job losses remains uncertain.

Lamanauskas rejected halting AI’s advance as a realistic response. He said 104 countries now have AI strategies, compared with four a decade ago. Instead, he called for investment in infrastructure and education, alongside regulation, so developing countries can participate in shaping the technology as well as using it.