New Delhi, February 19 Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said on Thursday that the benefits of AI in the Global South are more pronounced than anywhere else in the world, emphasizing that India's considerable technical expertise and eagerness to adopt AI present significant growth potential.
In a fireside chat at the AI Impact Summit 2026, Amodei said that while AI adoption has the potential to boost growth, we need to ensure that AI systems are safe and predictable and behave autonomously in a way that is under human control.
He stated that AI can be used to accelerate economic growth if the AI developers and those who conduct actual medical research can work together in India, which has a large population base.
"There is so much technical potential and technical adaptability in India. It almost seems like a perfect case study for the idea that AI could really accelerate economic growth, because it seems like the basic ingredients are, in a sense, all there, and AI could help to bring them together," Amodei said.
He said that in the developed world, AI usage could lead to a 10 per cent economic growth rate.
"Here in India, there is a lot of catch-up growth to be done. There is an enormous amount of technical potential and ability, and, as I am seeing, there is this eagerness to adopt AI. So, India is one of the few places in the world where I wonder if there could be 20 or 25 per cent growth, which is, you know, sounds absurd, is unknown anywhere in the world, but, but as I think about this, it kind of stacks all the factors for a very bullish picture of how that growth could happen," he said.
Talking about the adoption of artificial intelligence in the Global South, Amodei said that there is an opportunity for AI to accelerate growth and solve a number of problems that are in the way of catch-up growth.
"AI is a technology that has big risks and big benefits, but, in the Global South, the benefits may be even bigger than they are anywhere else. But at the same time, that doesn't mean, of course, that the risks aren't real," he said.
Amodei said, "We need to think about how democracies handle AI and how we confront other, other countries that are authoritarian. That's one of the risks."
Another risk would be to ensure that AI systems are safe, predictable, and behave autonomously in a way that is under human control.
"Everyone in the world has to worry about that. I think of particular relevance to India is the concerns raised around economic displacement. The signature of this technology is going to be that it greatly grows the economic pie for the whole world. The huge upside is because of the opportunity for catch-up growth, ...but, there things are going to change, and there is some potential for disruption," Amodei said.
