India's 'AI for All' plan can push development: World Bank VP Sangbu Kim

New Delhi: Artificial intelligence governance cannot be an either or choice between global rules and national regulation, said Sangbu Kim, World Bank Group's vice president for digital & AI. It has to be both, he told ET.

Kim, who is in India to attend the ongoing India Impact AI Summit in the national capital, also said India's 'AI for All' approach has great potential to advance development.

"Countries need regulation tailored to their own context, companies must step up on self-regulation, and we need global agreements because AI is borderless," he said.


The World Bank Group, he pointed out, is supporting this layered approach, for example, helping develop the African Union's AI Continental Strategy, which balances regional coordination with national flexibility.

Kim noted that AI adoption depends on trust, so innovation and regulation must advance together.

"The approach should be risk-based, principles-driven, and adapted to each country's institutional capacity and digital maturity," he said, adding that there is a strong global convergence on core principles like fairness, transparency, accountability, and data protection that give countries a solid foundation to build from.

On the risk of developing economies falling behind, Kim acknowledged the risk but said developing nations also have a narrow window to leapfrog, if they focus on practical deployment, adaptive regulation and skills.

"Digital divide is real and AI could widen it, but it doesn't have to," Kim said . "Through small AI, practical and affordable solutions that work where connectivity and infrastructure are limited, developing economies can tap into AI right now in health, education, and agriculture," he said, adding that in Kenya, farmers already use AI to diagnose crop disease offline and in India, AI-powered forecasts are catching monsoon shifts other systems miss.

On whether AI can widen inequality between skilled and unskilled workers in South Asia, Kim said there were risks but a larger number of jobs in South Asia had complementarities with AI.

"The risk exists, but in South Asia more jobs have strong complementarities with AI (15%) than are exposed to automation (7%), so AI is more likely to augment work than replace it," he said.

He said skilling both formal and informal workers is a top priority for the bank and it is working with governments and the private sector to make it happen.

"AI is already expanding what lower-skilled workers can do while helping higher-skilled workers leverage their expertise more effectively," he said.

On India's AI strategy focus, he said the country's Digital Public Infrastructure gives it a unique foundation to embed AI into everyday systems at scale, and its 'AI for All' approach has great potential to advance development.

Kim noted that India is making impressive strides in healthcare, education and agriculture, with initiatives like AI Kosh for open datasets, and its joint work with the World Bank Group on AgriConnect is showing real momentum. "The key now is that trust in the technology is maintained, so innovation can scale," he said.