TOPIC 8.7

Frontier Research & Gaps

⏱️30 min read
📚Research

Topic 8.7

Frontier Research & Gaps (2025–2030)

Chart the agenda for the next wave of digital economy scholarship. Identify frontier themes, critical measurement gaps, and collaborative pathways that align compute, sustainability, inclusion, and governance outcomes.

⏱️Approx. 30 min

🔮Future Roadmap

🧭Stage 7–9 · Frontiers & Reflection

Five Frontier Research Themes

AI-driven Productivity & Employment

  • Measure AI contributions to TFP, sectoral productivity, and wage distribution.
  • Model labour displacement vs augmentation scenarios; skills transition policies.
  • Integrate compute access and AI capital into growth accounting.

Agentic Internet & Platform Governance

  • Study autonomous agents coordinating transactions, logistics, finance.
  • Assess new risks (collusion, manipulation) and regulatory toolkits.
  • Explore agentic ecosystems for public goods (climate, health).

Global Data Governance & Sovereignty

  • Quantify economic impact of data localisation, trust frameworks, cross-border flow regimes.
  • Design data trusts/cooperatives for equitable value sharing.
  • Evaluate privacy-preserving computation (federated, synthetic) for policy compliance.

Sustainable & Resilient AI

  • Advance AI life-cycle assessment, including embodied emissions, water, and critical minerals.
  • Optimise workload placement (cloud vs edge) for carbon, latency, and resiliency.
  • Integrate sustainability constraints into model architecture and training.

Inclusive Digital Transformation

  • Move beyond access to measure meaningful participation, affordability, and capability.
  • Analyse digital public infrastructure (payments, ID, data exchanges) for equity outcomes.
  • Co-design metrics with marginalised communities; integrate qualitative + quantitative evidence.

Critical Measurement Gaps

Gap

Why It Matters

Research Leads

Unified Global DE Index

Current indices use divergent indicators/weights; difficult to benchmark progress or design incentives.

Develop harmonised toolkit with modular pillars (compute, sustainability, inclusion) and open-source weights.

ESG Integration

Environmental and social externalities remain invisible in economic statistics and policy dashboards.

Embed CADiS metrics into composite indices and corporate disclosures; quantify rebound effects.

Compute Equity Indicators

Compute concentration limits innovation outside hyperscalers; lacking official statistics.

Track GPUs per million, public compute access, and carbon intensity per task.

Data Valuation

Capitalising data impacts GDP, taxation, and investment incentives; methods inconsistent.

Experiment with income, cost, and market-based valuations; align with SNA 2025.

Meaningful Inclusion Metrics

Access metrics mask affordability, capability, and agency gaps.

Develop multidimensional inclusion indices (skills, affordability, usage quality) with gender/region disaggregation.

Research Roadmap 2025–2030

  1. 2025–2026

    Foundation

    • Launch harmonised indicator toolkit (compute, sustainability, inclusion, governance).
    • Prototype data/compute satellite accounts in pilot economies.
    • Set up global research network linking North–South institutions.

  2. 2027–2028

    Evidence

    • Publish compute equity dashboards; evaluate public compute performance.
    • Integrate CADiS metrics into national DESI/NRI variants.
    • Quantify rebound effects and policy efficacy across regions.

  3. 2029–2030

    Integration

    • Adopt unified digital economy + ESG indices at multilateral level.
    • Embed compute/data satellite accounts into national statistics.
    • Scale inclusive digital infrastructure with outcome-based financing.

Reflection · Draft Your Research Idea

Use the prompts to sketch a research question or policy experiment. Entries save locally to your browser (no network transmission).

Working Title

Frontier Theme Select a theme AI Productivity & Employment Agentic Internet & Platforms Data Governance & Sovereignty Sustainable & Resilient AI Inclusive Digital Transformation

Idea (150–300 words)

Save Idea Clear

🎯 Key Takeaways

  • Frontier research must integrate compute, sustainability, inclusion, and governance to reflect whole-system dynamics.
  • Measurement gaps— unified indices, ESG integration, compute equity, data valuation, meaningful inclusion— define high-impact research opportunities.
  • Roadmap milestones (2025–2030) emphasise harmonised indicators, public compute evaluation, and global collaboration.
  • Local storage reflection keeps the interactive flavour of the original module while supporting personal research synthesis.
  • Interdisciplinary, North–South partnerships and open science practices are essential for equitable digital futures.

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