Revolution or inequality trap? Amitabh Kant flags big risks, warns of artificial intelligence push backfiring at AI Summit

As Day 2 of the AI Impact Summit kicked off at Bharat Mandapam, former G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant called for a stark reality check to the developments of AI. Kant warned that if the artificial intelligence push leads to an unequal society, it would mean it had “failed.”

The ex-NITI Aayog CEO urged that the technology must not deepen existing divides but help close them, during a discussion on inclusive growth at the India AI Summit 2026.

Speaking at the panel ‘AI for India’s Next Billion: Intergenerational Insights for Inclusive and Future-Ready Growth’, Kant posed a challenge: can AI genuinely reach those below the poverty line and improve the lives of citizens across the Global South?


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For him, the technology’s success will not be measured by market capitalisation, but by whether it strengthens classrooms, improves nutrition and expands opportunity for those long excluded from economic progress.

“The challenge is whether we can ensure that AI reaches those below poverty line, vast segments of population, whether AI can be used to transform lives of citizens in the Global South, and whether AI can be used to improve learning outcomes, improve nutrition standards, which are major challenges before the world,” he said.

“AI is going to disrupt every sector, and therefore it is very important that it's made accessible, affordable and accountable. If we end up creating an inequal society...we have failed,” he added.

The panel featured a broad mix of voices, including Amandeep Singh Gill from the United Nations, Arunabha Ghosh of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), Awais Ahmed of Pixxel Space Technologies, Claire Melamed and Kunalika Gautam of the UN Foundation, Ruchira Goyal of Sustainable Food Systems, Safiya Husain of Karya, and Vishal Tripathi of CEEW.

Echoing Kant's sentiments was United Nation's Amandeep Singh Gill.

"The real tension is not between regulation and innovation. The real tension is between the have’s and the have not’s in terms of the AI oppurnity," he said. "Unequal capacity will lead to unequal outcomes and lead to greater inequality."

A warning from history

Moreover, drawing parallels with the post-World War II economic rise of Western nations, especially the United States, Kant cautioned that rapid growth does not automatically produce equality. Economic expansion, he noted, often leaves deep inequalities in its wake.

The same risk now confronts the AI revolution.

He warned that the current surge in global AI investments could create a “highly unequal society” if access to technology and computing power remains concentrated in a handful of corporations or countries.

Kant also pointed to India’s expanding role in shaping the global AI ecosystem.

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Referring to platforms such as OpenAI and its chatbot ChatGPT, he said Indian users are generating more data than those in the United States. That data, much of it originating from the Global South, is helping refine large language models and make them more sophisticated.

“The important thing is that today, we in India, if you look at OpenAI, ChatGPT, we are providing more data than the United States of America. 33% more data than the United States of America is doing. These large language models are getting better and better on the basis of data from the Global South,” he said.

Yet this contribution raises a critical concern.

If AI systems are trained and improved using data from developing nations, there is a risk that the resulting products could later be commercialised and sold back to those same markets at high cost.

“So the models are getting refined, and data for the Global South, they will create business models and sell you products at a very high cost tomorrow,” Kant warned.