Artificial intelligence, or AI, holds the promise to improve the lives of people around the world. At a recent side event at the 79th UN General Assembly, Secretary of State Antony Blinken identified actions the that the United States and its development partners can take to harness AI to advance sustainable development.
Indeed, Secretary Blinken announced a groundbreaking new public private partnership with leading AI companies to help expand access and capacity in the places and communities where it's needed most:
“The State Department will partner with Amazon, with Anthropic, with Google, with IBM, with Meta, with Microsoft, with Nvidia, with OpenAI to expand access to AI. The Partnership for Global Inclusivity on AI will work to close the gap in three crucial areas: Compute, capacity, context. The three Cs of advancing equity through artificial intelligence.”
“First, on compute, we're going to expand access to cutting edge AI models, compute credits and more open source tools,” said Secretary Blinken:
“This means that developers, researchers, innovators in low and middle income countries will be able to use models and tools that can improve their own AI applications and better tailor them to local needs and local challenges.”
With regard to capacity, said Secretary Blinken, “[w]e will accelerate training efforts to empower people to use and adapt AI tools.”
The U.S. will also work with governments, businesses, civil society organizations, and communities to create localized, context specific, data sets, including for indigenous cultures and languages.
To catalyze this partnership, Secretary Blinken announced that the Department of State and USAID will spend $33 million in U.S. foreign assistance on AI development, with $10 million for expanding access.
“We'll work with Congress to provide $23 million for programs to build on our efforts to develop safe, reliable, trustworthy AI governance frameworks, use AI to advance human rights and development priorities, and promote educational and cultural exchanges on AI related topics. Together, we and our private sector partners are committing over $100 Million to this effort,” he said.
AI has the potential to transform lives for the better. That’s why the U.S. is working to expand access to it. “The more we unleash human creativity, human ingenuity in every part of this planet,” said Secretary Blinken, “the better off all of us are going to be.”
