Page 31 - Connecting the Future How Connectivity and AI Unlock New Potential

Connecting the Future: How Connectivity and AI Unlock New Potential

In parallel, governments should establish sufficient market incentives and encourage data protec-
tion and security to build trust in digital systems and accelerate adoption, ensuring a good balance
between privacy protections and facilitating data flows, trade and economic growth. Access to
connectivity is not an end in and of itself, as the ITU estimates that one in three individuals who
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could go online chooses not to do so. Demand capped by concerns of a range of digital harms,
such as identity theft and privacy breaches, threatens to suppress potential market size, further
limiting private sector investments. Developing norms and sharing best practices for how to protect
users against such risks will help support market and network growth by encouraging those who
can connect to do so. Governments have been making great progress on this front, so the outlook
is encouraging.

Private Sector

The private sector’s financial, commercial, and scientific advantages are critical in building digital
infrastructure. Companies can provide front-end investments to develop the physical and digi-
tal components of AI enablers, while advising government on best practices. Recognizing the
untapped potential investment returns in developing markets, telecommunications companies
can design, construct, and operate the needed infrastructure elements to connect AI applications
to processing centers.
Companies can provide front-end investments to develop the physical and digital components of AI
enablers. Besides exercising their financial muscles to invest and construct essential infrastructure
elements in developing markets, the private sector can also leverage its power in market analysis
to provide insights into consumer demands, challenges, and specific user needs that vary in coun-
tries and regions and advise governments on bespoke policy implementation. Industrial experts in
the private sector are crucial in this development phase, where expertise and innovative capacity
are necessary to improve access and lower costs for new and existing users, and such actions can
position them well to capitalize on expected economic growth fueled by an AI economy. 98
Simultaneously, the private sector can leverage their talent networks to support AI capacity building
and workforce development, offering training and skills-development initiatives to communities
across the world, with a particular focus on emerging markets. Courses, workshops, and other
educational investments in individuals and local organizations can cultivate relevant skills for AI-re-

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