GSMA Warns 3.4 Billion Offline Risk Becoming AI Have-Nots as Divide Deepens
GSMA data identifies 3.4 billion people globally who remain offline as at acute risk of exclusion from the benefits of artificial intelligence, sharpening the organisation's earlier warning about an emerging global AI divide. The framing carries direct strategic relevance for African connectivity policymakers and operators, given the continent's outsized share of the unconnected population.
AI Divide: the chip shortage nobody planned for
Here is the uncomfortable twist in the GSMA's numbers: the people being locked out of AI aren't being locked out by a lack of towers or signals. More than 90 percent of the 3.4 billion offline already live within reach of mobile broadband.
The barrier is a handset they can't afford — and it's getting worse because of AI itself. Global demand for AI data centres has sent memory prices up more than double since mid-2025, which feeds directly into the cost of entry-level phones. In Sub-Saharan Africa, a basic internet-enabled device already costs the poorest fifth of the population the equivalent of 76 percent of a month's income. That number is climbing.
So the AI boom is actively making the first rung of digital access harder to reach, for the very people who were closest to grabbing it.
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- GSMA warns of AI divide as 3.4 billion remain offline · techtrendske.co.ke · T2