Global Investors Just Put $8.8 Billion Into Emerging-Market AI. The Caribbean Wasn't Invited.

Edouard Baldus, La Bourse, 1850s–60s. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain.

Private investors committed $8.8 billion to AI infrastructure across developing economies in the first half of 2026, the fastest pace Bloomberg has recorded since 2008. Apollo Global Management alone committed up to $20 billion to Mexican infrastructure projects, part of it for data centres. India secured its own billion-dollar commitments. The Caribbean, with roughly 44 million people a few hours' flight from Mexico, is absent from every named deal.

I have built AI companies in Jamaica without this kind of capital for years. This piece sets out what the Bloomberg figures show, what the regional data adds, and what Caribbean founders and institutions can do about the gap.

Where the $8.8 billion went

Bloomberg's report on August 5 described private equity, venture capital and private credit funds moving beyond the chip-heavy public markets of South Korea and Taiwan and financing AI infrastructure directly in developing countries: data centres, digital networks, compute capacity. Besides Apollo's Mexico commitment, Kuaishou's Kling AI raised $2.8 billion from investors including Alibaba and Abu Dhabi's BlueFive Capital. The first-half total already exceeded commitments for all of 2025.

This is infrastructure money, planned over years, and it is looking for new locations with land, power, talent and workable regulation. In 2026 it found Mexico City and Mumbai. It has not reached Kingston, Bridgetown, Port of Spain or Georgetown, and the reason is that the Caribbean has not yet assembled what these funds screen for at the scale they need.

What regional data says about the gap

The 2025 Latin American Artificial Intelligence Index from ECLAC and Chile's CENIA, released in October 2025, found that Latin America and the Caribbean draw 1.12 percent of global AI investment while producing 6.6 percent of global GDP. Relative to economic size, the region receives about one sixth of what it would if investment tracked output. That gap existed before the 2026 wave, and nothing in the Bloomberg data suggests it has narrowed.

Demand looks different. The same index found the region accounts for 14 percent of global visits to AI tools while holding 11 percent of the world's internet users. McKinsey's 2025 State of AI survey found that 88 percent of organisations worldwide report regular AI use in at least one business function. Caribbean businesses are adopting the tools that exist; what they lack is capital and local infrastructure.

Coordination is the other half. A fund assessing "the Caribbean" sees fifteen small markets with different currencies, data laws and regulators. That is a harder case to make at an investment committee than Mexico, and it is the part the region can change fastest.

What building without that capital taught me

I founded StarApple AI in Kingston as a company built around AI from the start, and no fund was writing infrastructure-sized cheques for Caribbean AI then. None is now. The companies in our network exist because they found paying customers in the region.

The lesson is that infrastructure investment and market building are separate problems. The Caribbean has made progress on the second without help from the first. When infrastructure capital does look at the region, it will either find companies with revenue and customers or a region still waiting. The first gets the cheque sooner.

The weak point in this argument is scale. Revenue-funded companies grow slowly, and no amount of bootstrapping builds a data centre. The region still needs the infrastructure money eventually, and I do not know how long it will take to arrive.

What Caribbean founders and institutions should do next

1. Founders: plan on revenue, not a funding round. List ten organisations that have the problem you solve and aim to have one paying customer within 90 days; treat any investment that arrives later as a bonus.
2. Founders: choose a problem that depends on Caribbean data, such as speech recognition for Patois and Creole, regional insurance claims, or island supply chains. Your first step is a signed data-access agreement with one partner organisation, because that data is what an outside competitor cannot get.
3. Founders and policymakers: join the Caribbean AI Association and contribute company and market data to a shared regional profile that investors can read as one market.
4. Governments and regulators: publish AI governance guidance before investors ask for it. The Caribbean AI Risk Management Council offers risk frameworks that a ministry can adapt without starting from scratch.
5. Founders ready for outside money: approach venture vehicles built for this region, including Maestro AI Labs, which I set up to provide patient capital and operating support to Caribbean AI ventures. Bring revenue figures, not projections.
6. Energy and investment ministries: publish electricity price, grid reliability and subsea cable capacity for candidate data-centre sites in one document. Infrastructure investors ask for those numbers first.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does an AI infrastructure investor check before choosing a country?

Power comes first: the price per kilowatt-hour, how reliable the grid is, and whether renewable supply can be contracted. Next come international connectivity through subsea cables, land and permitting timelines, tax treatment and currency convertibility, and whether data protection law is in force. Caribbean electricity is expensive by global standards, so a credible data-centre pitch usually has to include a dedicated power arrangement.

Does the 1.12 percent figure describe the Caribbean on its own?

No. The ECLAC and CENIA figure covers Latin America and the Caribbean together, and the region's largest economies account for most of that investment. The Caribbean's own share is therefore very likely smaller than the headline suggests. Anyone quoting the number for a Caribbean pitch should say it is a regional figure.

Where can a Caribbean AI founder look for early-stage money today?

Customer revenue is the most reliable source. Beyond that, founders can approach angel networks such as First Angels Jamaica, innovation grants and pilots from IDB Lab, the Inter-American Development Bank's innovation arm, and regional venture vehicles. In Jamaica, the Development Bank of Jamaica has supported venture capital funds, so check its current programmes. Diaspora investors are another source, and they are more receptive when you show paying customers.

Which Caribbean countries have data protection laws in force?

Jamaica's Data Protection Act 2020 came into full force in December 2023, and Barbados passed its Data Protection Act in 2019. Other countries are at different stages, with some laws passed but only partly in force, so check each market before you process personal data there. Investors treat an enforced law as a sign of legal certainty, which is one reason governance work helps a fundraising case.

Is it realistic to present fifteen Caribbean markets as one investment case?

Partly. The CARICOM Single Market and Economy lets some categories of skilled nationals work across member states, and the OECS runs a deeper economic union with a shared currency, the Eastern Caribbean dollar. Regulation, data law and payments still differ by country. A pitch should state which markets a company can serve today and what stands in the way of the others.