March 19, 2020

Digital information has an economic contribution, often called the data economy. Technology and data have an economic value that is generated by its creation, storage, and retrieval to national economies.

Digital Realty recently commissioned Development Economics, an independent UK-based consultancy, with a data-driven analysis project to rank the top global digital capitals and predictions through 2029. Specifically, 60 major global cities were analyzed in terms of the growth of their data economies and how they’re being driven by the four major technologies: AI, IoT, Blockchain and 5G. The report estimates both the current and potential future annual contribution to wealth creation in each of the 60 digital capitals from each of these digital technologies, identifying our ‘digital capitals’ over the next decade.

Before diving into the report, you can check out these 20 top facts from our Global Digital Capitals Index:

The annual global value contributed by AI, IoT, Blockchain and 5G is anticipated to increase from nearly $169 billion in 2019 to $392 billion by 2024 and $721 billion in 2029
AI is expected to dominate in contributing the most to this growth
5G is expected to grow at the fastest rate over the 2019-2029 period since it’ll be growing from a much smaller base compared to AI, IoT and Blockchain
By 2029, the largest contribution to annual economic output from the technologies is expected to be generated in New York City ($4.614 billion) followed by Shanghai ($42.31 billion)
The scale, supply and use of the technologies used in commercial, public administrative and domestic applications in each city will be the principal drivers for growth in the annual contributions of AI, IoT, Blockchain, 5G and IoT
The worldwide annual growth rate for data generation is expected to be 61% up until 2025 which will be driven by future growth in data-intensive technologies such as AI, advanced robotics and 5G
Current estimates (2019) of the daily generation of data includes 294 billion emails being sent
...65 billion messages being sent on Whatsapp
...5 billion internet searches being made
...4 petabytes of data are created on Facebook
...4 terabytes of data are created from each connected car
The global market for AI services could reach $191 billion by 2025 compared to just $21 billion in 2018
The total number of active device connections is currently estimated at 19.4 billion, of which 8.3 billion are IoT objects
The total number of active device connections is expected to reach over 34 billion by 2025, of which 21.5 billion will be IoT objects
The IoT market is estimated to be worth $923 billion by 2025
New York City ranked #1 in a global list of 60 leading cities and is anticipated to remain at #1 up until 2029
Los Angeles is anticipated to rank #2 by 2029
Tokyo is anticipated to rank #3 by 2029
Currently, the Pacific region has the highest ranking with Tokyo, Singapore, Shanghai, Seoul, and Hong Kong all making the top 10 list.
The largest Blockchain contribution to an economy in 2019 was Tokyo

The scale and complexity at which digital business is conducted will continue to grow over the next decade. As more data-intensive technologies evolve and the need for a stable digital foundation becoming more critical than ever, it will be interesting to see how the data economy continues to develop on a global scale.

20 Things to Know About the Top 60 Global Data Economies