Arvind Krishna, Chairman and CEO of IBM, said that artificial intelligence (AI) will add up to US$10 trillion to the global economy in the next decade.

Greater adoption of AI in the UAE could also add up to US$200 billion in productivity gains by 2030, Krishna told Omar bin Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Teleworking Applications, at the World Government Summit 2022.

The leader of the US tech giant tipped AI to transform the world economy after warning that the planet lacks skilled people to keep up with the pandemic-induced disruption caused to workplaces everywhere.

Speaking during a one-on-one panel entitled ‘The Next Big Merger: Governments and Technology’, Krishna said, “I fundamentally believe that AI offers over US$10 trillion dollars of productivity to the world. If you think about GDP increase, this could be anywhere between 10, 20, or 30 percent. But we have to do this carefully, we have to harness the skills and deploy it in the right manner.”

Omar bin Sultan said that the UAE’s talent pool will be boosted by India’s decision to set up the first Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Abu Dhabi. The arrival of the prestigious technology school, which has produced some of the world’s leading tech entrepreneurs, is one of the outcomes of the historic India-UAE Strategic Partnership signed in February.