Strong investment in AI infrastructure is keeping global growth at about 3%, and yielding major benefits for Asian economies that supply the hardware, such as Thailand, International Monetary Fund MD Kristalina Georgieva said on Monday.
The AI investment boom was already delivering a “demand shock, an investment shock” that could lift growth in advanced Asian economies by between half a percentage point and a full percentage point, and in emerging Asian economies by 0.2 to 0.8 percentage points, she said.
“AI, love it, hate it. It’s already here,” Georgieva said.
“That shift into higher gear is what is keeping the world economy growing at around 3%, despite the fact we are being dragged down by the energy supply shock,” she told hundreds of participants on the first day of a week-long series of IMF and World Bank meetings in the Thai capital.
The IMF forecast global growth of 3% for 2026 in July. It will release an updated outlook on Tuesday.
Some 18 000 people are expected to attend the meetings, including finance officials from the IMF’s 191 member countries. Several ministers will skip them to focus on domestic priorities, including US treasury secretary Scott Bessent and Spanish finance minister Arcadi España, sources familiar with the matter said.
A ‘slow-moving tsunami’
Georgieva said AI amounted to a “slow-moving tsunami” that would have profound consequences for jobs, growth, education and even how governments raise tax revenue, given the expected shift from labour to capital.
The IMF estimates that, over time, AI could lead to 40% of jobs being augmented, downgraded or eliminated, she said. An initial study showed that 10% of jobs in the US already required AI skills. While routine, repetitive jobs were shrinking, low-paid jobs were growing in two sectors: construction and data centres.
“It is a transformative technology. It so completely changes how we work, how we live,” she said, adding that an AI assistant now gives her a 30-second briefing on her schedule each day.
The US, China and India are the most important producers in the AI supply chain, but many of the companies building the infrastructure it needs are in Asia, Georgieva said, citing Thailand, host of this year’s annual meetings.
World Bank president Ajay Banga, who has made jobs a central focus of his presidency, said the development bank was using “small AI” – which does not depend on large language models – to drive big productivity gains for farmers, healthcare systems, educators and others in emerging markets.
Singapore’s President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, speaking at the same event, said governments should address how AI was reducing job opportunities for graduates.
“There is a particular problem that we have to address very soon … and that is that the first rung in employment, your first job upon graduation, is now seeing less demand,” he said.
He said the world should also guard against AI creating a “new divergence” in growth and job creation between developing and advanced economies – a risk echoed by PwC, which has warned that South Africa’s high inequality will limit how much it gains from AI.
“AI is going to widen the divergence if we are too passive about it,” Tharman said. “So we’ve got to do everything we can to first use AI to create good jobs and to create jobs that can be done well by human beings, can allow them to ride up a career ladder despite AI.” — Andrea Shalal, David Lawder and Rae Wee, © 2026 Reuters
