‘Controlling technology does not bridge the divide,’ says e& chief at WEF

LONDON: Controlling key technologies such as artificial intelligence does little to bridge the divide between richer and poorer nations, hindering the potential to benefit all, according to Hatem Dowidar, group chief executive officer of e&.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Dowidar highlighted the need for a shift in mindset among regulators to “close the divide rather than widen it.”

He said that the challenge lay less in countries lacking the expertise or resources to build AI infrastructure and more in governance and data sovereignty issues, which often required external handling.

“We do have a couple of cases now where agreements have been done that allow for data to be handled securely,” he said. “In other markets, there are a few lighthouse cases that allows this to happen, and actually some of the hyperscalers — Microsoft and AWS — are working on creating these ring-fenced sovereign clouds that can serve countries from another country while really preserving that integrity and sovereignty.”

Dowidar explained that while many countries lacked access to AI know-how and connectivity, the energy-intensive process of training AI models presented perhaps a more significant barrier.

“So there is a possibility where you can have these central areas, where we can serve the countries that don’t have the massive energy needed to teach the models, but then we need to relax the AI data sovereignty issues,” he said.

Participating in the panel, “AI: Lifting All Boats,” Brad Smith, vice-chair and president of Microsoft, discussed his company’s push toward a decentralized approach to AI development. He pointed to Microsoft’s $1 billion investment, in partnership with Abu Dhabi-based AI firm G42, to establish a data center in Kenya as an example of such efforts.

“It is hard to spend a billion dollars to support 50 million people in Kenya alone, but we’re doing it,” he said. “But the real question is, can we grow that and can we reach Rwanda? We can, but only under one circumstance that you get Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda and Kenya and Ethiopia, that you get the East African Community to decide together that they will all use that data center.”

He called this type of development “a data zone, just like we have free trade zones that will get us halfway there.”

However, Smith emphasized that the private sector alone could not shoulder the burden of such investments. Local governments and international institutions were essential to “kickstart the demand” if regions such as East Africa were to bridge the divide and compete on the global stage.

The panelists also criticized the US for its protectionist approach, particularly the imposition of export controls on competitive nations such as China.

While acknowledging that American technology currently held a significant edge, they argued that these restrictive policies were fueling rival nations to “catch up in various ways, partly by driving them to develop more frugal and innovative models.”