Google CEO Sundar Pichai called artificial intelligence (AI) “the most transformative technology yet” during his speech on Saturday at the UN Summit of the Future.

He also announced the creation of a new fund to support AI education and training initiatives worldwide.

Pichai emphasised the advantages of AI while pointing out its drawbacks, such as the rise of deep fakes, and voiced concern about the growing disparity in access to AI across geographical areas. 

To address this problem, he declared the creation of the USD 120 million Global AI Opportunity Fund, which intends to work in partnership with regional NGOs and nonprofits to offer AI education and training to communities all around the world.

Pichai pointed to four broad opportunities he sees for AI and sustainable development: helping people access information in their language, accelerating scientific discovery, providing alerts and tracking around climate disasters, and fueling economic progress.

Pichai also called for “smart product regulation” to solve the problems that artificial intelligence (AI) presents, but he also warned against national protectionist policies that would impede the technology’s advancements.

Pichai did not address AI’s effect on the climate, but he did concede that AI poses concerns, such as with deep fakes. To prevent a worldwide “AI divide,” he continued, Google is setting up a $120 million worldwide AI Opportunity Fund, which will enable the company to “make AI education and training available in communities around the world” in collaboration with regional NGOs and nonprofits.

We earlier reported that as demand for AI and cloud services grows, Google announced that it would invest $2 billion in Malaysia, with the majority of the funding going towards constructing the country’s first data centre and cloud region.

Ruth Porat, president, CFO, and CIO at Alphabet and Google disclosed the funding plan in a statement.