Huawei has announced the Global Digital Index (GDI), a league table of the digital economy as it develops around the world. The Index, which has been designed in association with market intelligence experts IDC, compares the pace of progress in digital infrastructure in 77 economies around the world, covering 93 percent of global GDP and 80 percent of the global population, and scoring them on a series of factors.

Unlike earlier metrics, the GDI takes into account factors such as sustainability transition, to create a more meaningful measure of the return on investment (ROI) offered by digital infrastructure, drawing a topline conclusion that every dollar invested yields an average 8.3 times return on the dollar.

This sends the message that prioritizing investment in the digital economy is not a luxury, but an essential part of creating prosperity and well-being.

In introducing the report, David Wang, chairman of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) infrastructure managing board at Huawei, said, “We are moving ever faster toward the intelligent world. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is being catalyzed by digital technologies, like AI, 5G, 5GA, and green energy.”

Looking at the factors that affect GDI

Data used to calculate GDI is an amalgamation of figures from a range of reliable sources including the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), World Economic Forum, United Nations, and World Bank, plotted against a framework designed by Huawei and IDC, which covers four main factors:

  • Ubiquitous connectivity: Availability of fixed and mobile internet
  • Digital foundation: The infrastructure of data centers, storage, disaster recovery, etc
  • Green energy: The journey toward sustainability
  • Policy and ecosystem: Government attitude and investment in ICT.

Each of these four broad categories is subdivided into individual considerations ranging from the availability of car charging stations to IPv6 deployment (the most recent version of the internet protocol for network addressing.) These are then scored and averaged against an algorithm designed by Huawei and IDC to create a balanced scorecard. The full list of sources and methodology used can be found in the report, which you can download from the link at the bottom of this page.

These figures have been generated against a backdrop of phenomenal data demand, with 2023 figures showing:

  • 7.939 billion mobile broadband connections
  • 12,548 exabytes of global data volume
  • 5.768 billion smartphones in use
  • 30 percent of energy from renewable sources.

Frontrunners in each cluster

The league table is divided into three broad categories:

  • Frontrunners: Refers to nations with the most advanced digital investment
  • Adopters: Nations making great strides toward digitalization
  • Starters: Nations who are just beginning their digital journey.

The top five for each category are as follows:

front runners
– DCD

China comes in at number eight in the frontrunners league, while the UK clocks in at number 11, outside the top 10, but above other developed nations such as Germany, France, South Korea, and Japan. Ireland, with its myriad of data center developments, was ninth.

Some of the results may seem surprising, and suggest there is a direct correlation between sustainable practices and digital infrastructure success, with Scandinavian countries fairing incredibly well, thanks to their access to free cooling and heat reuse, as well as mature policies from supportive governments. China is working steadily toward decarbonization after a period of intense industrialization, but thanks to its advanced attitude toward a joined-up digital economy, still gives a strong performance.

The main conclusions of the survey suggest that the maturity of a country’s ICT system is directly correlated to GDP per capita growth, with Frontrunner countries reaping 5.4 times economic value compared to Starter countries.

While there is inequity in the speed of growth within different countries, the intelligent use of fixed line and mobile connections can serve to bridge that divide, with ubiquitous connectivity and a robust digital foundation acting as a ‘multiplier’, reinforcing each other toward growth.

Finally, supportive industry policies and well-paced planning create the best conditions for a national digital economy to grow. It should be noted that although there is relative equity between the number of STEM graduates in each country, the conversion of that raw talent into ICT professionals varies greatly according to other national factors. Frontrunner countries converted 95 percent of their graduates, while Starter countries converted a mere 15 percent.

Other predictions from the data include that by 2030, a quarter of homes will boast 10Gbps internet connections, and 1 billion AR/VR users will be lured by the promise of ‘spacial experiences’ blending the physical and digital worlds, all adding to an annual data generation of 1 yottabyte, powered by 3.3 zetaflops of computing power, augmented by 864 zetaflops of AI compute.

A rise in ‘embodied intelligence’ will see automation become the norm, with one robot worker for every ten humans in industrial settings. This will all require a huge amount of energy, and Huawei predicts that 80 percent of this will come from green energy sources, against a global backdrop of 65 percent of the world’s electricity, making ICT a leader in the move to sustainability. All of this will lead to an even bigger demand for ICT skills, with an estimated 90 million roles (a rise of one quarter) in the sector.

The evolution of the Index

The GDI is a transitory instrument, which has evolved out of the earlier and well-respected Global Connectivity Index (GCI), founded by Huawei in 2014, to reflect a more holistic view of digital economies. Huawei has said that it will evolve in the coming years, to become the Global Digitalization and Intelligence Index, as more information about the artificial intelligence (AI) marketplace becomes available, reflecting the massive change that this will bring to the global economy.

Further down the line, other considerations such as quantum computing will factor in scoring the GDI, demonstrating that, just as technology is constantly evolving, so too will the factors we use to measure its success.

The message of the report is, fundamentally a simple one: investing in ICT pays, and the more that economies invest, the greater the cumulative rewards.

More information can be found in the GDI Report, available here.