PYMNTS Data Dive: The Widening Digital Divide Between Developed And Developing Worlds

This week, the World Economic Forum has some good news, and some not-so-good news, about the progress of the digital age. The good news is that the world is at the edge of what the forum’s report called “the Fourth Industrial Revolution” and that some truly amazing technologies are sitting just out on the horizon.

The future holds an even higher potential for human development as the full effects of new technologies such as the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, 3-D Printing, energy storage, and quantum computing unfold,” noted the report’s authors.

The not-so-good news, according to the latest issue of the Network Readiness Index (NRI), is that these benefits will likely be rather unevenly distributed.

How unevenly? Here it is by the numbers:

100% | How much more economic impact the top 7 nations in the NRI have vs. the bottom half.

75% | The percentage of countries include in the Index that saw a score improvement in 2016.

59 | China’s ranking on the NRI — it is the highest placement for a developing nation

53 | The number of factors the world economic forum looked at per nation to generate the NRI

5 | The United States’ placement on the NRI — it trails Singapore, Finland, Sweden and Norway, respectively.