Microsoft is using Mobile World Congress 2026 to send a clear signal: the company sees digital connectivity as the foundation of the global AI economy, and it now claims to have exceeded one of its biggest access commitments. According to a new Microsoft On the Issues blog by Chief Sustainability Officer Melanie Nakagawa, the company has now extended connectivity coverage to more than 299 million people worldwide, surpassing its 2022 pledge to reach 250 million people with internet access by the end of 2025. That total includes over 124 million people across Africa alone, reflecting years of work with local partners to reach places where connectivity has historically lagged.
Nakagawa frames the milestone as both a celebration and a reset point for what Microsoft wants “digital access” to mean in an AI‑first era. The company stresses that while hitting 299 million people is a major achievement, the real goal is making sure that access translates into education, healthcare, economic opportunity, and long‑term participation in AI‑driven growth. That shift in language—from raw coverage numbers to community outcomes—sets the tone for the entire announcement.
From coverage goal to AI‑ready communities
Microsoft originally set its 250‑million‑people target in 2022 as part of an effort to push connectivity into unserved and underserved regions around the world. Meeting and then exceeding that pledge required more than a traditional telecom build‑out: the company has been working with governments, nonprofits, local connectivity providers, and development partners to reach places where infrastructure is weak, affordability is a barrier, or the business case for private investment has historically been thin.
Now, Microsoft is explicit that connectivity alone is no longer the bar. The company says it is evolving its approach to focus on adoption, enablement, and what it calls “long‑term participation in the AI economy.” That means pairing internet access with reliable energy, affordable devices, digital skills, and cloud and AI tools that are actually designed for the way people in these communities live and work. Where those conditions exist, Microsoft argues, AI adoption rapidly follows.
The company points to Zambia as a proof point: generative AI adoption is just 12 percent at the country level, but among people who already have internet access, the adoption rate jumps to 34 percent. For Microsoft, that gap illustrates a simple idea—closing the connectivity divide is a necessary precondition to closing the AI divide.
AI Access Principles and a widening AI divide
This latest announcement also ties back to Microsoft’s AI Access Principles, first laid out by Vice Chair and President Brad Smith at Mobile World Congress 2024. Those principles argued that electricity and connectivity are as essential to an inclusive AI economy as the models and software themselves. A year later, the company is leaning heavily on its own AI Diffusion Report to how urgent the problem has become.
Microsoft’s 2025 AI Diffusion Report concludes that AI is being adopted faster than any general‑purpose technology in history, but that adoption remains highly uneven between regions. The report’s data shows AI use accelerating far more quickly in the Global North than in the Global South, with differences in infrastructure, access to tools, and overall digital readiness all feeding a growing divide between higher‑income and lower‑income economies.
A graphic from the report, highlighted in the blog, reinforces a key takeaway: access to AI services without the underlying basics—reliable power, connectivity, devices, skills, and relevant applications—does not translate into meaningful participation. This is where Microsoft is trying to position itself not just as a cloud provider, but as a partner in building the pre‑AI stack that makes those services usable.
A more holistic model for digital access
To support this broader vision, Microsoft is pitching what it calls a more “holistic digital access model.” Rather than treating connectivity as a standalone problem, the company wants to co‑design programs that address multiple foundational needs in parallel: internet access, energy infrastructure, sometimes water access, devices, digital skills programs, and cloud/AI tools tailored to local contexts.
Community‑based access models sit at the center of that strategy. Microsoft describes an approach where schools, health facilities, cooperatives, and community hubs become anchor institutions for sustainable, scalable connectivity deployments. These projects are structured with governments, businesses, nonprofits, and development finance institutions from the beginning, with financing and enablement layered in alongside infrastructure. The goal is to build systems that are financially sustainable and aligned with national development priorities rather than one‑off pilots.
This work also dovetails with another major Microsoft initiative announced in January 2026: the Community First AI Infrastructure plan, which sets commitments for how Microsoft will build and operate AI‑ready datacenters in local communities. In the new blog, Microsoft says digital access directly complements that infrastructure strategy by providing the local foundation for AI tools to be adopted, trusted, and integrated into everyday life.
On‑the‑ground partners in Africa, Latin America, and India
The connectivity milestone only makes sense in the context of the partners that actually built out networks and training programs on the ground. Microsoft’s announcement highlights a series of collaborations across multiple regions that made the 299‑million figure possible.
In Africa, Microsoft works with companies like Cassava Technologies to expand regional digital infrastructure and high‑quality internet access in markets such as South Africa, Malawi, Kenya, and Zambia. The company also calls out Tizeti, which uses solar‑powered Wi‑Fi networks to deliver affordable broadband across Nigeria and Ghana, as an example of how local innovation is central to reaching last‑mile communities.
In Latin America, Microsoft’s partnership with Anditel is focused on rural and agrarian areas in Colombia. There, the model is explicitly aligned with national priorities and integrates both internet and energy access, reflecting the idea that connectivity and power are tightly coupled in rural development.
In India, Microsoft works with AirJaldi to go beyond simple access by pairing affordable connectivity with digital skills training and practical pathways to use that connectivity for education, work, and local services. The company says this is what “meaningful adoption” looks like in practice: not just a signal on a phone, but a set of skills and tools that people can use to improve their lives.
Across all of these efforts, Microsoft is emphasizing a principle that “lasting digital access is built with communities, not for them.” That language is clearly aimed at critics who worry that large tech companies build infrastructure that doesn’t always reflect local needs or long‑term sustainability.
New collaboration with Starlink for hard‑to‑reach areas
Looking ahead, Microsoft is expanding its connectivity toolkit through a new collaboration with Starlink. By combining low‑Earth orbit satellite connectivity with its community‑based deployment models and local ecosystem partnerships, Microsoft wants to reach rural, agricultural, and hard‑to‑serve communities where traditional fiber or terrestrial wireless alone struggle to make the economics work.
Kenya is cited as an early example. Working with Starlink and local internet service provider Mawingu Networks, Microsoft is supporting connectivity for 450 community hubs across rural and underserved regions. These hubs include farmer cooperatives, aggregation centers, and digital centers where people can access online services, training, and tools. The deployments are designed not just to switch on connectivity, but to bundle it with digital skills programs, productivity tools, and ecosystem coordination focused on agricultural productivity and market access.
By positioning Starlink as one component in a broader partnership‑driven approach, Microsoft is also making it clear that satellite connectivity is not a silver bullet, but another layer in a multi‑technology strategy for creating “AI‑ready” communities.
Beyond 250 million: what comes next
While the 299‑million figure is an obvious headline, Microsoft is framing it as a beginning rather than an endpoint. The “beyond 250 million” section of the announcement outlines the next chapter of its digital access work: turning raw coverage into sustained adoption, use, and long‑term opportunity.
That roadmap includes:
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Continuing to partner with governments, development finance institutions, nonprofits, and private‑sector players to design programs that fit local priorities.
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Expanding into energy access and financing mechanisms, recognizing that power reliability and up‑front costs are often the real barriers to using digital services.
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Building out “community‑first” AI solutions that make AI useful and trustworthy in local contexts, rather than simply exporting tools designed for wealthier markets.blogs.microsoft+1
All of this is wrapped in a larger ambition: ensuring that “everyone, everywhere, can participate in the digital and AI economy.” For Microsoft, that’s not just philanthropy—it aligns tightly with its commercial strategy in cloud, AI, and devices across the Global South, where the company has already signaled plans for tens of billions of dollars in AI‑related investment over this decade.mlq+3
For developers, partners, and policymakers watching Microsoft at Mobile World Congress 2026, this announcement paints a picture of a company trying to connect its infrastructure build‑out, sustainability goals, and AI ambitions into a single story: if AI is the next general‑purpose technology, then the real competition is not just for cloud market share, but for who helps bring the next billion people fully online.
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