Microsoft AI Chief Warns of Widening AI Divide Between Global North and South – News and Statistics

Jul 15, 2026

The gap in artificial intelligence adoption between wealthy and developing nations continues to expand, according to Microsoft’s top responsible AI executive, speaking to Euronews Next.

Natasha Crampton, a former member of the UN’s High-Level Advisory Body on AI, cautioned that the existing digital disparity must not transform into a more severe AI divide. She shared her perspective on the sidelines of last week’s UN AI for Good Summit in Geneva, presenting a strategy to close the gap.

She addressed rising demands for AI sovereignty at technology conferences, especially after the Trump administration, one month ago, compelled Anthropic to prohibit non-US citizens from accessing its most advanced AI models, Mythos and Fable. That prohibition has since been partly reversed. For Crampton, AI sovereignty does not merely mean local alternatives that reject globally supplied technologies. Rather, she characterized it as prioritizing local impact, cultures, values, and norms within AI systems while still leveraging global technology when appropriate.

To address the digital gap, she highlighted multilingual efforts such as the Lingua project in Europe, which has now reached Africa through a collaboration with the Gates Foundation. LINGUA Africa is a cooperative initiative involving Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab, the Gates Foundation, Google.org, and the Masakhane African Languages Hub. The initiative seeks to gather data in local languages so that foundational AI models can grasp idiomatic expressions and cultural subtleties, granting communities the independence and technical expertise to manage their own AI-driven futures.

Crampton also stressed the necessity of linking the private sector and government to promote safer AI accessible to all. The UN conducted its inaugural Global Dialogue on AI Governance in early July, with the goal of ensuring that governance reflects the priorities of every nation and that AI…

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