Atlas Collective
An interactive atlas that visualizes how AI development, resources, and labor are unevenly distributed across countries.
Challenge
AI and the Global Inequality Gap
Investigation whether AI is closing the gap of global inequalities, as often claimed, or instead widening the existing divides. Our task was to make the hidden connections visible and understandable for non-experts, especially in relation to ecological and social sustainability.
Team
Anna Marie Fischer, Aashritha Shrinath, Rimsha Iftikhar, Ssu-chi Huang, Eglantine Cruz, Guillaume Duro--Hébert, Sandra Martínez Mateos
About the prototype
Our prototype, the Atlas AI, is a web-based map that brings together scattered indicators across the social, ecological, and economic dimensions in 34 countries. For a set of focus countries, it shows who concentrates AI infrastructure (like data centers and compute), who drives AI innovation (publications and investment), and who mainly supplies data, labor, and resources such as minerals, energy, and water. By combining these datasets in one place, the atlas makes visible how the benefits and costs of AI are distributed unequally across the globe. The tool is aimed at students, researchers, and policymakers who need an accessible entry point into this complex topic. It is designed to be updated and extended over time as more data on AI’s impacts become available.
Outputs
Project Report of Atlas AI
Pitch Slides of Atlas AI
Interactive Prototype
Impressions
