Bangladesh at AI crossroads

When Riaz Mahmud's small textile printing factory faced obsolescence from an AI-powered competitor, he stood at a precipice familiar to millions of Bangladeshis: be rendered obsolete by the coming wave or learn to ride it. He mortgaged his home to import a digital printer, taught himself the software and transformed his business. His old workshop is silent, but a new and resilient enterprise now thrives.

This small story of creative destruction mirrors a national challenge, one thrown into sharp relief by the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics, awarded for research into how AI will reshape developing economies. 

The laureates' unsettling conclusion is that AI supercharges Joseph Schumpeter's famous cycle of "creative destruction", where innovation wipes out the old to make way for the new. For half a century, Bangladesh mastered this cycle in the physical world, building a garment industry that clothed the world. But the Nobel work exposes a new reality: this cycle now operates at the speed of software. The destruction is already at our door. 

Our famed ready-made garment sector faces a double threat from AI-driven automation and smart supply chains that are quickly eroding the low-wage advantage which built our economy. Believing we have a decade to adapt is a dangerous illusion. 

Yet within this crisis lies an extraordinary opportunity. The Nobel research stresses that AI can be a leapfrog technology for agile nations. Imagine a Bangladesh where AI-powered precision farming triples yields for climate-hit farmers, where diagnostic AIs in community clinics close the healthcare gap between villages and cities, and where intelligent systems ease traffic and forecast floods. This is not science fiction. It is an achievable future for a nation that chooses to be a creator, not a casualty. 

To seize this future, we must first declare a national emergency in education. Our current system, with its focus on rote learning, is a factory for obsolescence. The only secure jobs in an AI world are those that rely on irreplaceably human skills: critical thinking, creativity and complex problem-solving. We need a curriculum revolution that introduces computational thinking from the primary level and turns our universities into research and development hubs for AI adapted to Bangladeshi challenges. 

Second, our policy must be proactive, not protective. The government's role is not to shield declining industries but to phase out outdated policies that block innovation. We need a "Sandbox Nation" strategy, creating regulatory safe zones for AI start-ups, offering tax incentives for reskilling, and building the digital infrastructure -- such as a national data cloud -- that is the oxygen for an AI-driven economy. 

Finally, we must forge a new social contract. This transformation will be painful for many. Without strong safety nets and lifelong learning accounts, the social fabric will fray. We must launch a major national upskilling mission, focusing on our greatest strength, our youth, and on vulnerable workers whose jobs are most at risk from automation. 

The 2025 Nobel Prize carries a clear message from the future. The hurricane of AI-driven creative destruction is gathering. We can board up the windows and hope it passes, or we can build windmills to harness its power. Bangladesh has defied expectations before. Our task now is to summon that same spirit of resilience to navigate the greatest economic transformation since the Industrial Revolution. The time to choose is now. 

The writer is coordinator of Ella Alliance and founder of Ella Pad