New Delhi [India], February 19 (ANI): Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith on Thursday said artificial intelligence (AI) will play a decisive role in shaping the global economic balance, particularly between the Global North and South.

Speaking at the India AI Impact Summit 2026, Smith said, 'I think the best way to think about AI is to look at it more broadly and think about the state of the world we live. We live in a tumultuous and a fragmented world but I think in so many ways the deepest emotion during divide has been the economic divide between global north and south.'

'This economic divide is a result more than anything else the technological divide,' he added.

The technology divide, he said, among others, is created by unequal access to electricity.

He stressed about the lack of electricity among millions of citizens across the globe.

'Now come AI, AI perhaps more than any other technology this century will play a bigger role either in closing this economic divide or in exacerbating it or even wider,' he said

Raising the question of inclusion, the Microsoft Vice Chair said, 'As we think about the role of AI in the global south, how can we better become as we need to do better.'

Smith emphasized that infrastructure, data centers, compute, connectivity, electricity all will be required to bring AI to the Global South.

Earlier this morning, Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a powerful message of technological optimism at the India AI Impact Summit 2026, asserting that while some view the rise of artificial intelligence with apprehension, India embraces it as a cornerstone of its future growth.

Addressing the India AI Impact Summit 2026 at Bharat Mandapam venue in New Delhi, the Prime Minister stated, 'While some see fear in AI, others see the future. I can say with utmost pride that India finds its future in Artificial Intelligence,' emphasising the nation's proactive and optimistic stance toward the technology.PM Modi highlighted the unprecedented velocity of the current technological era.(ANI)