The Gates Foundation has announced plans to spend at least US$1 billion over the next two years to expand access to artificial intelligence, with investments targeting health, education, agriculture and the digital infrastructure needed to make the technology more accessible to poorer and underserved communities.
The commitment comes amid growing concern that artificial intelligence could widen the gap between richer and poorer countries if the technology is developed mainly for people and institutions that can afford it.
The funding was announced alongside the foundation’s 2026 Goalkeepers Report, which argues that the benefits of AI will not be shared equally unless governments, technology companies, philanthropies and communities deliberately invest in making the technology accessible and relevant to people in different parts of the world.
The report identifies language, local data and access to technology as some of the major barriers.
More than 90% of the data used to train early large language models came from English-language sources, according to the report, raising concerns that communities speaking other languages could be poorly represented in the systems increasingly being used to provide information, support decision-making and deliver services.
The foundation said AI tools also need to be developed for the settings in which they will be used.
This means involving doctors, teachers, farmers and other end users in the development and testing of AI tools, while allowing countries and communities to have a say in how their data is managed and protected.
Of the US$1 billion commitment, about 40% will go towards education. The funding will support areas such as AI tutoring to help personalise learning and tools designed to support teachers.
Another 40% will be directed towards health, including diagnostic tools, clinical decision-making support for frontline health workers, maternal and newborn care, and research into new drugs and vaccines.
Agriculture will receive about 10% of the funding. The foundation says the money could support AI-generated advice for smallholder farmers based on local soil, weather and crop conditions.
The remaining 10% will support the digital infrastructure needed to make AI more equitable, including the development of datasets in languages that are currently poorly represented in AI systems.
The announcement could be significant for countries such as Uganda, where artificial intelligence is increasingly being explored in health care, agriculture and education, but access to reliable digital infrastructure, locally relevant data and affordable technology remains uneven.
The foundation argues that the people expected to use AI tools should have a role in shaping them.
“If AI tools are built with the expertise of the end users, they can put knowledge and advice in the hands of hundreds of millions of people who haven’t benefited from previous technology revolutions,” the foundation said.
Bill Gates, chair of the Gates Foundation, said the rapid development of AI presents a challenge similar to earlier gaps in access to innovation.
“Left to the market alone, the most capable tools will be built first for the people and institutions most able to pay for them, not necessarily for those who could benefit most,” he wrote in the report.
The foundation said its funding will support organisations already working to expand access to AI and develop tools that reflect the knowledge and priorities of the communities expected to use them.
The 2026 Goalkeepers Report, titled Make This Matter: AI, Equity, and the Choice We Can’t Delay, calls for AI to be developed in more languages, adapted to local contexts and made accessible to the people who could benefit from it most.
The challenge, the report argues, is no longer simply whether AI will transform health, education and agriculture, but whether poorer countries and underserved communities will have the opportunity to shape and benefit from that transformation.
To read the 2026 Goalkeepers report, go to: www.gatesfoundation.org/goalkeepers/report/2026-
report/.
