AI gains can lift three times as many people out of poverty in Ghana – World Bank

Given the high fixed costs of digital infrastructure, investments in connectivity, electricity, digital skills, and computing capacity should be prioritised in productive urban centers and secondary cities, where agglomeration effects can accelerate AI adoption and productivity gains, the October 2026 Africa Economic Update stated ahead of the Annual World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) meetings which is taking place this time around in Bangkok, Thailand.

Distributional simulations for Ghana suggest that broadly shared Artificial Intelligence (AI) gains can lift three times as many people out of poverty as when they are concentrated among households already positioned to use AI, a World Bank report has disclosed.

AI Transforming African Economies According to the World Bank, AI is already transforming the African economies, but the scale and distribution of the gains are still limited.