Smart solutions for sustainable access and technological equity: the effect of energy transition, artificial intelligence, and digital economy on energy poverty

Abstract

The integration of energy transition, artificial intelligence, and the digital economy represents a significant shift in the global effort to combat energy poverty and offers innovative tools and approaches to increase energy access, efficiency, and affordability for underserved populations. This study examines the impact of energy transition, artificial intelligence, and the digital economy on energy poverty in emerging market countries for the period 2005–2019 using a robust current estimator, the MMQREG estimator. The GMM estimator was used to assess the robustness of the results of the MMQREG estimator. The analysis found that artificial intelligence improves energy poverty, while the energy transition and the digital economy worsen it. Furthermore, the control variables, economic growth, financial development, and urbanisation, are found to improve energy poverty. In this context, policy recommendations are developed based on the obtained results and contribute to the discourse on technological equality by emphasising the importance of integrating artificial intelligence in developing countries.