Sam Altman and Peng Xiao say the real AI divide is about access, not algorithms

Dubai: At a time when the world is debating whether artificial intelligence will take away jobs or reshape economies, two of the industry’s most influential figures warned that the real divide ahead will be one of access. Speaking at Gitex Global 2025 in Dubai, Sam Altman, Co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, and Peng Xiao, Group CEO of G42, agreed that the true challenge is not building smarter systems, but ensuring that everyone can use them.

Altman said the best way to prevent inequality from deepening in the AI era is to make intelligence “abundant and cheap.” That single phrase captures the next frontier of global development, treating intelligence as a shared resource, not a private privilege. “Every country will need to have an AI strategy,” he said. “The best way to avoid an AI divide is to make it available everywhere, to teach people how to use it, and to make it accessible to all.”

For Peng, the vision goes beyond accessibility. He calls it “the intelligence grid”, a new kind of infrastructure where intelligence flows like electricity, powering everything from education and governance to healthcare. “It’s intelligence as a super utility,” he said. “It converts AI into impact to achieve what seemed impossible. It advances human intelligence. It accelerates progress responsibly. It transforms how we live, work, heal, and connect.”

Through G42’s AI for Countries initiative, developed with OpenAI, the UAE aims to turn artificial intelligence into a public good. The idea, Peng said, is to apply frontier models like GPT across every layer of society. “You take this massive brain power of a frontier model, which is already at the IQ level of Einstein, in fact, a collection of Einsteins, and begin to adopt that to serve different layers of society,” he explained. “From the most basic needs of healthcare to cybersecurity, this is no longer about buying a piece of software. It’s about imagining big at the societal scale.”

He said the country’s leadership has already pushed education into the centre of this transformation. “We presented to His Highness Sheikh Mohammed that MBZUAI has launched an undergraduate AI programme,” Peng recalled. “He said, that’s pretty good, but not good enough. Go down to the age of seven, go up to the age of seventy. So now we are launching the ‘7 to 70’ programme to educate the entire society to embrace AI.”

Altman and Peng’s conversation also indicated a convergence between intelligence and energy, a link that could define the next phase of the global economy. Peng called it “a universal superhighway of super utility,” distributing intelligence everywhere through large-scale data centres. “We consider ourselves a digital nation builder,” he said. “We want to bring nations together to build a superhighway of intelligence tokens.”

Altman agreed, predicting that the cost of intelligence will one day match the cost of energy, a world where computing power, not oil or data, becomes the ultimate commodity. “We are heading to a world where the cost of intelligence is going to converge to the cost of energy,” he said. “Building on that energy and the ambition to do so is very important. The reason we do all of this is because we believe it can transform the world for people and unlock incredible new things that people deserve.”

But this future comes with a warning. Altman cautioned that while AI is advancing rapidly, the benefits risk being concentrated among a few nations and corporations unless proactive steps are taken. “We all believe AI will be awesome for the people of the world, but this is not anything any of us could do alone,” he said. “It takes the partnership of many countries, companies, and people at every level of the stack, working together.”

Peng echoed that urgency. “AI cannot be one of the top twenty priorities for a government. It has to be top three, maybe even top one,” he said. He also reminded leaders that the time for discussion is over. “The best way to deal with this unknown is to try it, experiment with it, and still absolutely put humans at the centre of this revolution. We have great employees and partners, but they are amplified ten to one through AI agents. This is a powerful productivity boost today.”

Their shared emphasis on inclusion and experimentation stood in contrast to the prevailing fear narratives that often dominate global debates on automation and job loss. Both urged governments to act now, not later, to make intelligence universal before inequality becomes irreversible.

What makes this conversation resonate beyond the technology sector is its human core. The UAE’s model, as Peng describes it, is built on belief, that AI is not merely a tool, but a new lifestyle. “AI is not just another technology that you can wait to deploy at the time of your choosing,” he said. “It is a new lifestyle we all have to embrace.”

For Altman, the point is not just about machines getting smarter, but about humanity keeping pace. “Technology and society co-evolve,” he said. “It’s a back-and-forth process. That is way more stable and way better for everyone.”