The expectation of a connected world was the driving force behind the first day at Huawei’s Global Analyst Summit, with the company presenting global connectivity data to bolster its new Open ROADS approach to the connected world.
Benchmarking 50 economies in terms of connectivity, ICT usage and digital transformation produced a global ranking of countries based on who is best poised to embrace the digital economy.
While the interest was predominately focused on which country ranked where in the index, a key take-away from the study was the indication that a 20% growth in ICT investment will increase a country’s GDP by 1%.
Five enablers of digital transformation were also identified – though many would not be surprised that the usual suspects of data centers, cloud services, Big Data, broadband, and the Internet of Things comprised the shortlist.
On to the all important rankings and the number one spot went to the United States leading the connectivity field with a GCI score of 85. The UK came in at fifth place with a GCI score 78 – coming in close behind Sweden, Singapore, and Switzerland, in second, third and fourth, respectively.
Mature countries were judged on the strength of robust supply and demand of ICT services, alongside an advanced state of adoption, while developing countries were characterised by strong mobile adoption and overall access comparable with that of developed countries.
Among developing economies Chile, China, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) lead the field, with all three ranking in the high teens to low twenties overall.
Another key finding from the index was that data centre investment by developed countries is three times that of developing countries, which is the major catalyst of cloud proliferation as "the edge does not exist without the core."
Commenting on the index, Kevin Zhang, President of Huawei Corporate Marketing, said, "The Global Connectivity Index is not merely a ranking of countries. We see it as a platform to partner with policymakers and enterprise leaders to identify, harness, and create new digital economy opportunities with the aim of building a Better Connected World."
The 2015 Global Connectivity Index deployed a much more comprehensive framework than last year’s index, doubling the number ICT variables and countries analysed when compared to the 2014 index. Not only does the index encompass networks, computing and storage, but it also takes into account non-infrastructure elements of a functional digital economy, such as service demand, and e-commerce activity.
