Doha, Qatar – 7 December 2025
Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates delivered a wide-ranging address at the Doha Forum 2025 on Saturday, declaring that artificial intelligence (AI) will fundamentally reshape creativity, education, healthcare, and economic development across the globe, with particular implications for the world’s youngest and fastest-growing continent, Africa.
Speaking to a packed audience at the annual international conference hosted by the Qatar Foundation, Gates compared the transformative potential of AI to historic breakthroughs such as electricity, microchips, and advanced medicines. “Its power lies not in duplicating existing foundations but in how societies apply it,” he said.
AI and the Future of Creativity
Gates predicted that AI will profoundly alter artistic and creative industries worldwide. “Across the entire world, the idea of how AI is going to change creativity — making movies, photos, books — it’s really very open-ended,” he told the forum.
He emphasized that while foundational large-language and multimodal models will likely continue to originate primarily in the United States and China due to their concentration of scientific talent and computing resources, widespread access will be guaranteed through open-source initiatives and market competition. “There’ll be lots of free open-source capability,” Gates noted, adding that intense commercial rivalry will keep even proprietary tools affordable.
Africa’s Unique Opportunity
The billionaire highlighted Africa’s demographic advantage — the continent has the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population — as a key reason it could lead in applying AI creatively. “Because Africa is young, they’ll have a disproportionate number of the people who have kind of new ideas about how to shape it and take it,” he said.
He warned that early adopters, regardless of geography, will disproportionately influence the technology’s trajectory. “All we can say today is that the people who jump in early — that is where a lot of creativity is going to come.”
Revolutionizing Healthcare and Agriculture in the Global South
Gates, whose Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation focuses heavily on sub-Saharan Africa, described how AI-powered virtual doctors accessible via basic mobile phones could transform primary healthcare in low-resource settings.
“Anyone who has a cell phone will have the ability to dial a number or connect through an application and simply talk to a doctor — a virtual doctor — which is driven by AI,” he explained. Such systems would maintain lifelong health records, provide 24/7 advice in local languages, and be free at the point of use.
He extended the same principle to agriculture, envisioning AI assistants that deliver real-time, personalized guidance on soil management, weather patterns, seed selection, and livestock health. Combined with advances in crop genetics and drought-resistant varieties, Gates argued that these tools could make African agriculture “the primary area of big economic growth” and help the continent overcome climate and demographic headwinds.
Childhood Survival and Persistent Inequalities
Reflecting on the original mission of the Gates Foundation, established in 2000, Gates reiterated the absurdity of a world that tolerates preventable child deaths. He cited the latest World Health Organization figures showing approximately 600,000 child deaths from malaria in 2024, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa.
“It is truly insane that a world that’s this rich doesn’t find the resources” to eradicate the disease, Gates said, insisting that existing tools — insecticide-treated bed nets, seasonal chemoprevention, and new RTS,S and R21 vaccines — make elimination achievable within a generation.
He also described childhood malnutrition as an “evil” that irreversibly impairs physical and cognitive development, stating bluntly: “You cannot be educated to any reasonable level if you’ve been malnourished.”
Equitable Access as a Moral Imperative
Gates identified equitable distribution of AI benefits as one of the defining ethical challenges of the coming decade. “Making sure that AI… is available, particularly to young people in the Global South — I’d say that is one thing our foundation has taken on as a goal,” he announced.
In some fields, he predicted, innovations emerging from African developers and entrepreneurs could eventually “show the entire world how these innovators in the Global South are taking this new tool and taking advantage of it.”
