India’s digital public infrastructure, AI-powered farming initiatives and rapidly growing business adoption of artificial intelligence have emerged as some of the strongest examples cited in the World
Bank’s World Development Report 2026, which argues developing economies can reap significant benefits from AI without building expensive frontier models.
Rather than focusing on ChatGPT-style breakthroughs, the report repeatedly points to India as a country demonstrating how existing AI tools can be adapted to solve local problems in agriculture, finance and public services.
Among its headline examples is Telangana, where AI-based weather forecasting helped small farmers save up to $560 each by improving decisions on sowing, irrigation and crop management.
The report also singles out India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) as a model for future AI ecosystems. Alongside Brazil’s Pix, UPI is cited as an example of digital public infrastructure that allows multiple providers to compete on a common platform while ensuring interoperability, an approach the World Bank says countries should favour over pursuing complete “AI sovereignty”.
“India’s UPI and Brazil’s Pix… show how this might work. By giving many providers access to the same underlying system, they promote competition and make it easier to add or replace one provider without rebuilding the entire network.”
The report also identifies India as one of seven countries surveyed by the World Bank to understand how businesses are adopting AI. With 1,355 firms included in the survey—the largest sample among developing economies—India is used repeatedly as a benchmark for comparing AI adoption, digital readiness and business capabilities with both emerging markets and the United States.
India also features prominently in the report’s discussion of AI-powered agriculture. A dedicated spotlight on agricultural advisory services repeatedly references Indian examples to show how localised AI applications can improve productivity while keeping costs low for small farmers.
The World Bank argues these examples demonstrate that countries do not need to develop their own frontier AI models or build billion-dollar data centres to benefit from the technology. Instead, governments should focus on adapting existing AI tools to local languages, institutions and public services while strengthening electricity, internet connectivity, digital infrastructure and workforce skills.
World Bank Group Chief Economist Indermit Gill said AI offered developing countries “a lifeline” at a time when growth has slowed sharply.
“They do not need large models or big data centres to reap its benefits. By adapting small, low-cost AI tools to local conditions, they can bring better medical care, education, judicial services and agricultural extension within reach of millions.”
The report also cautions that generative AI is beginning to reshape labour markets. It finds AI has already reduced hiring for some white-collar occupations exposed to automation, although overall it estimates AI is more likely to complement jobs than replace them across developing economies.
