The Paradox of Sustainable Technology: How Can International Policy Close the Global Compute Divide?

Sustainability in the future world offers an image of a convenient, high-quality life characterized by AI-managed healthcare systems, automated agricultural plants. However, this image is starkly different for economies struggling with the "Great Compute Divide" (Ahmed et al., 2023)—a barrier built by expensive computer chips and the high energy costs required to supply modern technology. The paradox is therefore clear: technology can help solve global environmental and social problems, but unequal access to technological infrastructure can prevent many countries from benefiting from those solutions.

In the past, food security has been a key inhibitor of development; however, a World Bank (2023) report suggests that through AI analysis of soil conditions and precision farming, low-income countries could increase major crop yields by 10%-25%, significantly lowering the risk of famine. Furthermore, systems such as eSanjeevani have successfully lowered cross-infection rates and infant mortality in rural areas (World Health Organization, 2024), and IoT sensors and big data have proven useful in managing urban pollution, such as sewage discharge (Nwafor, 2023), which can reduce the negative externalities of development in crowded cities like Lagos.

However, AI’s capital-concentrated model requires enormous initial investment and imposes severe environmental burdens, such as heat pollution and construction waste (Bender et al., 2021), especially for developing countries. Simultaneously, "Data Colonialism" raised by Couldry and Mejias (2019) suggested that global connectivity is developing in a model similar to 19th-century colonization, making these nations even more vulnerable. Social media and information services in developing countries generate vast profits, yet these are mostly directed toward giant U.S.-based tech firms like Meta and TikTok. Their dominance in the market significantly hinders the growth of local technology companies in the developing world.

In the current technology-driven world,  basic AI models and computation facilities are an extension of basic human rights. As Kaul (2012) stated in the definition of global public goods, an external solution must be drawn when technologies hold strong externalities. To realize this vision, international policy must regulate the global technological monopoly. The UN should set up an institution, similar to the IMF but focused on technology, to build a "global compute pool." This institution would be authorized to charge a 5% value-added tax (VAT) on computation power in token wise or from revenue collected by running data center in developing countries from multi-national technology companies, contributing the revenue to the pool. This fund of money and token will be governed by a international committee whose members are selected from countries lacking compute power, and advised from experts in the field of computer science and digital infrastructure.

There should also be an agency in this institution designed to craft tech solutions specifically for developing countries. By providing computation power from the pool and advising on low-cost databases and edge computing, this agency would offer paths for low-income countries to reach sustainable development or overcome critical crisis. Recipient countries’ representatives should be incorporated to this committee which provide demographic and cultural knowledge for the geographically-specialized solution.  These solutions would help avoid the financial and environmental barriers associated with constructing large, independent data centers. To avoid a new form of compute divide, this institution should focus on long-term digital development in targeted countries, which include training local employees, building local data centre, and buying hardware from local manufacture if possible.

Ultimately, the future should be a world where technological sovereignty belongs not only to developed countries but also to underdeveloped ones, and where the benefits of advancement are shared throughout humanity. As the Great Compute Divide is closed, more people can live without the fear of food insecurity and disease, fostering a higher level of global cooperation rather than informational exploitation.

References

• Ahmed, N., Wahed, M. S., & Thompson, N. C. (2023). The growing compute divide. Science, 382(6671), 631–633.

• Bender, E. M., Gebru, T., McMillan-Major, A., & Shmitchell, S. (2021). On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big? Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, 610–623.

• Couldry, N., & Mejias, U. A. (2019). The costs of connection: How data is colonizing human life and appropriating it for capitalism. Stanford University Press.

• Kaul, I. (2012). Global public goods: Explaining their underprovision. Journal of International Economic Law, 15(3), 729–750. * Nwafor, C. U. (2023). Smart city initiatives in Lagos: Challenges and opportunities for sustainable development.

• World Bank. (2023). Digital Progress and Trends Report 2023.

• World Health Organization. (2024). Ethics and governance of artificial intelligence for health.