Amitabh Kant, former chief executive officer of Niti Aayog, on Tuesday said artificial intelligence (AI) must be multilingual so that it can be used to transform the lives of citizens in the Global South and not end up deepening inequality.
Speaking during a panel discussion titled ‘AI for India’s Next Billion: Intergenerational Insights for Inclusive and Future-Ready Growth’ at the ongoing India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi, Kant stressed that AI must be accessible, affordable, and accountable.
AI and the risk of inequality
According to Kant, the rapid pace of AI development and the scale of investments being made could lead to significant disruption and potentially create a highly unequal society.
“The challenge is whether we can ensure that AI reaches the population which is below the poverty line, whether it can be used to transform the lives of citizens in the Global South and whether it can be used to improve learning, health outcomes, and nutritional standards,” he said.
Kant cautioned that if AI is not designed to benefit those below the poverty line, existing disparities could widen further. He added that the technology must be leveraged to improve education and learning outcomes, noting that what was not physically possible earlier is now achievable because of AI.
Global South should build its own LLMs
Kant underlined that AI systems must reflect linguistic diversity. “If AI is not multilingual, it will cut out a large section of the population,” he said.
He also pointed to the growing contribution of data from India and other countries in the Global South to train large language models (LLMs). According to him, India today provides 33 per cent more data than the United States.
Kant said that LLMs are improving based on data from the Global South and warned that big tech firms could build business models on such data and later sell products at high costs. He argued that India and other developing countries should build their own models based on their own data to ensure equitable benefits.
Lessons from digital public infrastructure
Drawing from India’s experience with digital public infrastructure (DPI), Kant said the country was able to leapfrog decades of progress through open and interoperable systems.
He noted that open application programming interfaces (APIs) and global interoperability enabled innovations in fast payments, stock market transactions, insurance and last-mile credit delivery. On that foundation, the private sector was allowed to innovate and compete.
Kant suggested that a similar approach be adopted for AI, with a layer of digital public identity on top of which the private sector can build and compete.
As AI adoption accelerates, he said, it is crucial that the technology be deployed to improve the lives of people in the Global South, ensuring that growth is inclusive rather than exclusionary.
