Technology News: The International Monetary Fund warned on 13 October 2026 that the economic gains from artificial intelligence are flowing to a small group of countries. The United States and China account for more than three-quarters of net imports of AI computing hardware, while Taiwan and South Korea produce most of it. For BRICS members outside that circle, the question is how to avoid becoming pure consumers of other people’s infrastructure. We asked Alessandro Civati, founder of LutinX and an entrepreneur with more than twenty years in IT, cybersecurity, blockchain and digital identity.
Key facts
- Source: IMF World Economic Outlook, October 2026, released at the annual meetings in Bangkok.
- AI hardware: the US and China took more than 75% of net imports of AI computing hardware in 2025; Taiwan and South Korea account for 62% of net trade in it.
- Jobs: IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva estimates that about 40% of jobs worldwide will be affected by AI.
- Concentration: 32 countries now generate 95% of global growth, down from 54 in the April estimate.
- Risks flagged: an AI-related market correction and cyberattacks that could disrupt financial systems.
What exactly did the IMF say?
The Fund’s message was blunt. Growth, it wrote, is being “reallocated across countries according to their exposure” to energy prices and to AI. Economies that build chips or host large data centres are doing better. Energy importers with little stake in the AI supply chain are falling behind.
Georgieva described the effect on employment as “a slow moving tsunami, but a tsunami nonetheless”. The IMF also listed cyber threats to the financial system among the main downside risks, next to high public debt and a possible correction in AI-linked stocks. On the day the report came out, South Korea’s Kospi closed 5.5% lower during a sell-off in AI-related shares.
For emerging economies, the AI dividend is far from automatic. Most of the BRICS group, with China the obvious exception, buys the hardware, rents the cloud capacity and licenses the models.
Expert view: Alessandro Civati
“The IMF has put numbers on something we see every day. Whoever controls the data centres and the identity layer controls the value. Chips are only the visible part. The real dependency starts when a country’s banks, hospitals and public registries run on infrastructure and identity systems that sit somewhere else.”
“For the BRICS countries, buying more GPUs isn’t the answer. The answer is to own the trust layer: verified digital identity for citizens and companies, certified records that can’t be altered, and data centres that are treated as strategic assets, like ports or power plants. When a data centre goes down, it isn’t an IT problem. It’s a sovereignty problem.”
“The cyber risk the IMF mentions is real. Attacks on cloud and connectivity hubs are already a tool of geopolitical pressure. Emerging economies that digitise fast without securing identity and infrastructure are building on sand. The good news is that verification technology is cheap compared to chips. A country doesn’t need a foundry to give every school certificate, land title or professional licence a verifiable digital proof.”
“Forty percent of jobs affected also means forty percent of workers who will need to prove new skills. Verified, portable credentials will matter as much as the models themselves.”
What could BRICS do in practice?
India, which chairs BRICS in 2026, brings its own experience with national digital identity and payment systems. China has the largest domestic AI and data-centre base in the group. The remaining members bring markets, energy and young populations.
Several practical options follow from this analysis:
- shared standards for digital identity and credential verification across member states;
- regional data-centre capacity, especially in energy-rich members such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia;
- cooperation on cyber defence for financial infrastructure;
- joint training programmes so that workers displaced by automation can certify new skills.
None of this changes the IMF numbers overnight. But the next World Economic Outlook, in April 2027, will show whether the gap is still widening.
FAQ
What did the IMF say about AI in October 2026?
That AI gains are concentrated in a few economies, with the US and China taking more than 75% of net imports of AI computing hardware, and that about 40% of jobs will be affected.
Who is Alessandro Civati?
The founder of LutinX, a digital identity and blockchain certification company, with more than twenty years of experience in IT, cybersecurity, blockchain and digital identity.
What does “tech sovereignty” mean for BRICS countries?
Control over the data centres, identity systems and records that critical services depend on, rather than relying entirely on foreign infrastructure.
Sources: AP via Fortune; The Week; CNBC.
