Microsoft, the US technology company, has said it is on track to invest $50 billion by the end of the decade to expand artificial intelligence access across the Global South.
The announcement came at the India AI Impact Summit on 17 February 2026, where the company released findings from its AI Diffusion Report showing that AI usage in wealthier nations is roughly double that of poorer ones.
Microsoft warned that the gap is widening, with consequences for economic growth and broader opportunity in developing regions.
The company said it invested more than $8 billion in data centre infrastructure serving the Global South in its last fiscal year, alongside more than $2 billion in cloud, AI and skills programmes in the region.
Microsoft outlined a five-part strategy covering infrastructure, connectivity, education, multilingual AI development, local innovation, and adoption measurement.
The company said it is pursuing a goal to extend internet access to 250 million people, including 100 million across Africa.
Among the initiatives announced is Elevate for Educators, a programme designed to train two million teachers across more than 200,000 schools and reach eight million students.
Microsoft also announced a $5.5 million open funding call called LINGUA Africa to support African language AI development.
The company said it has contributed a 7,000-prompt pilot dataset covering Indic and Asian languages to the MLCommons AILuminate benchmark, an industry tool used to evaluate AI model performance across languages.
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Microsoft also said it is contributing to a Global AI Adoption Index being developed by the World Bank.
"We need to act with urgency to address the growing AI divide," the company said in a statement.
The recap
- Microsoft on pace to invest $50 billion by decade end.
- Microsoft invested more than 8 billion in datacenter infrastructure.
- Elevate for Educators will train two million teachers in India.
