World Bank urges Japan to share AI gains to narrow global inequality

The World Bank’s message to Japan is that AI is now central to macroeconomic growth planning, not just a tech‑sector story. Gill’s argument—AI could re‑ignite productivity, but mostly in countries that can afford to deploy it—goes straight to one of the under‑discussed dynamics of the AGI race: unless there is deliberate technology and capability transfer, advanced AI risks reinforcing the lead of already rich, digitally mature economies.

Japan sits at an interesting crossroads. It has world‑class manufacturing, robotics and a strong research base, but it has been slower than the US or China in consumer AI. The World Bank wants Tokyo to lean into its role as a trusted investor and standards‑setter across Asia, helping diffuse AI tools and know‑how in a way that narrows, rather than widens, the global productivity gap. If Japan and multilateral lenders start tying infrastructure finance and trade deals to AI capacity‑building—skills, compute access, localized models—that could meaningfully change who gets to participate in the next wave of automation.