India, Feb. 19 -- Microsoft on Wednesday said it is on pace to invest $50 billion by the end of the decade to expand artificial intelligence access across the Global South, as it warned that AI adoption in the Global North is roughly twice that of the Global South and the gap is widening.

Announcing the plan at the India AI Impact Summit, the tech giant's vice chair and president Brad Smith and vice president and chief responsible AI officer Natasha Crampton said urgent action is needed to prevent a growing AI divide from deepening global economic disparities.

"The India AI Impact Summit rightly has placed this challenge at the center of its agenda. For more than a century, unequal access to electricity exacerbated a growing economic ga...