In the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, a new United Nations report is raising alarms about a potential widening of global inequality. The 2025 Human Development Report from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) warns that AI development could significantly worsen the gap between the world’s richest and poorest nations, creating what the report calls a “Next Great Divergence.”
A Digital Divide Deepens
Behind the excitement about AI’s transformative potential lies a stark reality: wealthy nations are far better positioned to reap its benefits. The report identifies countries like China, Japan, and South Korea as leaders in AI readiness, while nations such as Afghanistan and Myanmar face significant barriers to adoption. This disparity isn’t just about technology—it’s about infrastructure, skills, and governance systems that enable effective AI implementation.
Michael Muthukrishna, the report’s main author from the London School of Economics, emphasized a crucial point during the report’s launch in Bangkok: “We tend to overemphasize the role of technology. We need to ensure it’s not technology first, but it’s people first.”
The report draws an unsettling parallel to the “Great Divergence” of the industrial revolution, when Western countries rapidly modernized while others lagged behind. Today’s AI race is happening at an even faster pace, with adoption measured in months rather than decades. This acceleration means the gap between AI-ready and unprepared nations could widen quickly if proactive steps aren’t taken.
The Promise and Peril of AI
Despite the cautionary tone, the UNDP report acknowledges AI’s tremendous potential for good, particularly in healthcare and agriculture—sectors critical to developing nations. The technology offers possibilities such as:
- Better farming advice through precision agriculture
- Faster and more accurate medical diagnoses
- Improved weather forecasting for agricultural planning
- Enhanced disaster risk assessment and response
In healthcare, AI systems can analyze medical images, detect diseases earlier, and personalize treatment plans. For agriculture, which employs a significant portion of the population in developing countries, AI can optimize crop yields, monitor soil health, and predict pest outbreaks. The Food and Agriculture Organization has documented numerous pilot projects where AI-powered tools have helped smallholder farmers increase productivity and income.
However, the report cautions that these benefits will remain out of reach for countries lacking basic digital infrastructure. As Muthukrishna notes, communities struggling with access to electricity, internet connectivity, and basic digital literacy risk being completely excluded from the AI revolution.
Learning from History
The “Great Divergence” reference isn’t a casual comparison. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the industrial revolution created a stark divide between industrialized Western nations and the rest of the world. Countries with access to coal, capital, and institutional frameworks capable of supporting industrial development surged ahead, while others fell further behind.
Today’s AI landscape presents similar risks. The advantages of early AI adopters compound over time, creating feedback loops that make it increasingly difficult for latecomers to catch up. Countries that establish robust AI capabilities early will likely attract more investment, talent, and economic opportunities, while those left behind will see their relative position deteriorate further.
The Centre for Economic Policy Research has published extensive analysis on how the original Great Divergence shaped modern global inequalities, providing important context for understanding the stakes of the AI divide.
Recommendations for Equitable Development
The UNDP report doesn’t merely sound alarms—it offers concrete recommendations for managing AI development equitably:
- Major investments in digital infrastructure, particularly in underserved regions
- Skills development and education programs focused on AI literacy
- Strong governance frameworks to ensure AI benefits are shared broadly
- Inclusive data practices that don’t leave vulnerable populations invisible
- International cooperation to share AI knowledge and resources
Crucially, the report emphasizes that the choice between divergence and convergence isn’t predetermined. With thoughtful policy decisions, AI could help reduce global inequalities rather than exacerbate them. However, this requires deliberate action to ensure that AI development is “people-centered” rather than purely technology-driven.
As the International Monetary Fund has also noted in their research on AI adoption and inequality, the path AI takes will depend largely on the policy choices made in the coming years. Without intervention, the benefits of AI are likely to concentrate among those who are already well-off, both within and between countries.
A Race Against Time
The urgency emphasized in the UNDP report reflects a fundamental shift in how quickly technological change can reshape societies. Where industrialization took decades to transform economies, AI adoption is happening at breakneck speed. This acceleration means that the window for implementing policies to ensure equitable AI development is narrow.
Developing nations face a double challenge: building the necessary infrastructure and skills to participate in the AI economy while also managing the social and economic disruptions that AI adoption will bring. For some countries, this might mean leapfrogging directly to AI-enabled systems without fully establishing earlier digital infrastructure—a challenging but not impossible task with the right support.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. If the warnings in the UNDP report prove accurate, we may be witnessing the early stages of a new form of global inequality—one driven not by access to physical resources but by access to computational power and data. The decisions made in boardrooms, government offices, and international organizations in the next few years will determine whether AI becomes a force for greater global equity or a new source of division between the world’s haves and have-nots.
As we stand at this technological crossroads, the choice is indeed a matter of human development—the central theme of the UNDP’s 2025 report. Whether AI becomes a tool for lifting all boats or just the yachts of the already privileged depends on the policy choices we make today.
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