The Gates Foundation will spend at least $1 billion over the next two years to help poorer countries use artificial intelligence in healthcare, education and agriculture, as concerns grow that the technology could widen existing global inequalities.
Bill Gates’s foundation says artificial intelligence must be designed for communities and languages overlooked by current systems.
- The Gates Foundation will spend at least $1 billion over two years on more equitable uses of artificial intelligence.
- The money will support AI applications in health, education and agriculture, alongside local-language tools and better data.
- Africa is expected to benefit, although the foundation has not disclosed a continent-specific allocation.
- The commitment expands existing work with African countries, including a $50 million primary-healthcare programme beginning in Rwanda.
The commitment accompanied the foundation’s2026 Goalkeepers Report, which warned that AI systems built mainly with data, languages and priorities from wealthy countries could leave much of the developing world behind.
The money will support the creation and deployment of AI products designed for communities that are poorly represented in current technology. This includes tools for health workers, teachers and farmers, as well as efforts to improve access in languages largely ignored by leading AI models.
“More than 90 per cent” of the information used to train early large-language models came from English-language sources, according to the report. That imbalance matters in Africa,which has more than 2,000 languages but limited representation in the datasets used to build popular AI products.
The foundation has not disclosed how much of the $1 billion will be spent in Africa or released a full list of participating countries. The commitment should therefore not be described as a billion-dollar Africa fund.
However, the continent is likely to feature prominently because many of the problems targeted by the programme, including shortages of doctors and teachers, weak agricultural advisory systems and limited access to information in local languages, are particularly acute in African countries.
From experiments to practical services
The new commitment expands work already under way on the continent.
In January, the Gates Foundation and OpenAI announced the $50 million Horizon1000 programme, beginning in Rwanda.It is intended to introduce AI tools into as many as 1,000 African primary healthcare facilities and their surrounding communities by 2028.
The programme is expected to help health workers with clinical decisions, administration and the management of scarce resources. Its usefulness will depend on whether it can operate within facilities facing unreliable electricity, weak internet access and shortages of trained workers.
Those practical constraints distinguish Africa’s AI challenge from the debate in richer economies, where attention frequently centres on advanced computing infrastructure and the replacement of white-collar jobs.
For many African countries, the immediate question is whether AI can extend services that are already in short supply without reinforcing dependence on foreign technology companies.
In agriculture, locally designed systems could give smallholder farmers information about pests, weather and crop diseases. In education, teachers could use AI to develop lessons in children’s first languages. Health workers could receive diagnostic or administrative support in facilities without enough doctors.
Who controls the technology?
Bill Gates said AI could improve life for the world’s poorest people if access is distributed fairly. He also warned in an interview with Reuters that governments were poorly prepared for its effects on employment, security and society.
The $1 billion commitment addresses access, but it also raises questions about ownership and control.
African governments and companies will need to establish who holds the data collected by health, education and agricultural systems, where that information is stored and whether locally developed products can survive after philanthropic funding ends.
The scale of the announcement is substantial by philanthropic standards but remains small compared with the tens of billions of dollars being invested in AI infrastructure by major technology companies and wealthier nations.
