Driving development: the impact of ICT investments on the digital economy

Growth in AI consumption is creating commercial opportunities across the AI value chain. Over the past year, investment in AI has increasingly extended towards revenue-generating services and enterprise propositions, with operators assuming a broader range of roles across the AI value chain. Telcos in Asia Pacific are particularly active across multiple layers of the AI value chain. They account for 43% of those participating in the infrastructure layer and 38% in the model layer. This position reflects the combination of large and linguistically diverse markets, government-backed national and sovereign AI agendas, expanding AI infrastructure investment, and the scale of leading regional operators and technology ecosystems.

Digital trust has become a strategic delivery mechanism for building digital nations. Countries that build confidence in digital infrastructure, services and institutions will be better placed to convert digitalisation into adoption, innovation, investment and socioeconomic impact. To explain how digital trust can be strengthened, this report introduces four interconnected foundations of digital trust. Traditionally viewed as connectivity providers, mobile operators are increasingly contributing to all four trust foundations, making them key enablers of digital trust. 

B2B has emerged as a strategic growth area for operators and the wider tech/digital ecosystem. As the digital transformation of vertical sectors accelerates, gaining insights directly from enterprises is key. GSMA Intelligence surveyed enterprises from six countries and 10 vertical sectors across the ASEAN region to gain insight into their digital transformation. The research focused on strategic objectives, investment plans, use of technology, deployment challenges, supplier decisions, technology sovereignty, and policy and regulation.