Regions

The UK government needs to make a choice: competitiveness and growth or heavy-handed regulation in the service of social policy. It can have one but not both.

AI presents a wealth of opportunity for the UK, not only as an economy boosting mechanism, but also as a tool for improving the lives of UK citizens. AI adoption is key to the Action Plan, and the government should take actions that can simultaneously support AI sector growth and AI adoption.

The UK's AI Opportunities Action Plan focuses on sector growth and adoption. The government should encourage lightweight models, invest in industry-academia partnerships, and establish sector centres to support AI uptake across industries.

Labour aims to revive the UK’s economy by focusing on spreading innovation across all sectors, addressing the nation's productivity challenges through practical measures. By building on existing projects and ensuring the adoption of new technologies, particularly in both high-tech and low-tech sectors, Labour can deliver visible results and drive meaningful growth across the country.

As AI continues to advance, the technology has created many opportunities and risks. Despite significant geopolitical differences, a series of interviews with AI experts in China and the United Kingdom reveals common AI safety priorities, shared understanding of the benefits and risks of open source AI, and agreement on the merits of closer collaboration—but also obstacles to closer partnerships.

Canadian telecommunications policy under successive governments has taken for granted that the domestic industry suffers an inadequate supply of market participants. But that assumption is unmoored from reality on various fronts.

Big Canadian telcos, grocery stores, and banks have not seen major changes in profitability over the past four years or compared to their international peers. Rising prices should not be attributed to “price gouging” but plain old inflation.

Age assurances are not the only available option to protect children online. But if policymakers are set on mandating age assurance systems, regulation should be limited to high-risk circumstances, avoid inflexible requirements, and be designed to be technologically and commercially agnostic.

Innovation, productivity, and competitiveness must be top priorities for Canada’s next federal government, not sidenotes or vague aspirations to be addressed with little more than lip service.

Legislated procurement targets for SMEs should be a tool to stimulate technology R&D and commercialize Canadian innovations, and not a goal in and of itself. Focusing on firms that develop innovative solutions for government problems will create opportunities for Canadian firms to scale up and drive innovation, productivity, and competitiveness.

A new irrigation technology incorporating AI sensors reduces water use by 30 percent and methane emissions by 47 percent compared to continuous irrigation methods.

Proposed changes to Kenya’s competition regime will hinder, not help its digital economy. Rather than impose substantial changes based on the false premise that digital markets require special treatment, Kenya should use existing enforcement tools to police its growing digital markets.

ITIF’s submission focuses on the ITC’s interest in recent developments in the digital economy for key SSA markets, including national and regional regulatory and policy measures and market conditions that affect digital trade.

When attempting to evaluate the effect that a policy intervention can have on development or innovation, researchers and policymakers routinely look to short-term impacts, both out of urgency and because of the difficulty in maintaining contact with participants over several years.

Over the last decade, mobile money services have brought banking to populations that have lacked formal financial services by allowing users to manage money on their mobile phones. First launched in Kenya in 2007, 96 percent of Kenyan households now use mobile money and can withdraw funds in physical currency from 110,000 agents across the country.

The Australian government announced on November 8, 2024, its intention to introduce legislation this year banning users under 16 from social media platforms. As is the case with similar legislation at the state level in the United States, blocking an entire age group from social media is the equivalent of using a regulatory sledgehammer instead of a scalpel to address complex and evolving online safety issues.

For policymakers to bolster the global competitiveness of their nations and regions, they first must know where they stand. This report benchmarks the 87 regions of India and the United States using 13 commonly available indicators of strength in the knowledge economy, globalization, and innovation capacity.

Nursing homes are notorious for worker shortages, which worsens the quality of care for patients and the work environment for employees. Japanese nursing homes have begun deploying robots to address these problems.

The United States and Japan must make a concerted effort to mutually advance their economic security and counter Chinese economic coercion, while bringing other allied nations aboard the enterprise to the greatest extent possible.

The SSCP’s broad per se prohibitions and limited cybersecurity exemption are likely to chill the very innovative behavior that is key to allowing Japan’s smartphone markets to thrive, and risk targeting a leading firm of one of its closest allies.

Since 2015, the number of Chinese students enrolling in U.S. PhD programs has decreased by about 3.7 percent, while the probability a Chinese student will enroll in a PhD program in another English-speaking country, such as the UK, Australia, or Canada, has increased by 2.1 percent.

It is often said that the Chinese economy cannot innovate. This is a dangerous assumption.

The best way for U.S. policymakers to think about China, at least in the realm of technology and industry, is that we are engaged in a form of war: China is seeking to defeat the United States on the techno-economic battlefield.

China accounted for 35 percent of global manufacturing as of 2023. The United States and Western allies should launch a global competition to establish competing manufacturing hubs in countries that commit to reforming restrictive regulations, reducing corruption, boosting skill development, and ensuring adequate financial incentives and infrastructure.

The European Union needs to pay a short-term price for long-term gain by standing alongside the United States in taking tough action to hold China accountable for its IP theft, dumping, and over-subsidizing.

While it remains uncertain what Ribera’s tenure will bring, early signs indicate she could drag sustainability into competition policy and pursue an unacceptable double standard of pushing European firms to grow while singling out American ones for aggressive enforcement.

Unfortunately, new proposed guidelines for enforcing against abusive exclusionary conduct untether liability from likely harms to competition and consumer welfare.

In its bid for tech sovereignty, the EU has been aggressively targeting U.S. firms and industries with unfair protectionist policies. This cannot stand. To move forward into a new era of deeper transatlantic trade integration, America must first demand a level playing field.

Europe needs to pump the brakes on new regulations before it can properly assess the long-term effects of the GDPR, DSA, DMA, and AI Act.

Mario Draghi's 2024 report addresses the EU's biopharmaceutical decline, citing challenges like underfunded research, fragmented pricing, and competition from the U.S. and China. It recommends reforms but underplays the impact of EU drug price controls on innovation.

Private ISPs have invested the equivalent of 2 BEAD programs every year since the BEAD statute was enacted.

Information and communications technology (ICT) is driving global economic growth and economic opportunity. Many countries are taking effective steps to deploy digital infrastructure, enhance citizens’ digital skills and literacy, empower women and disabled citizens to leverage digital tools, and helping small- and medium-sized enterprises take advantage of digital technologies.

China accounted for 35 percent of global manufacturing as of 2023. The United States and Western allies should launch a global competition to establish competing manufacturing hubs in countries that commit to reforming restrictive regulations, reducing corruption, boosting skill development, and ensuring adequate financial incentives and infrastructure.

TauRx is revolutionizing Alzheimer's treatment with a novel drug that targets toxic brain proteins, offering fresh hope in the fight against this devastating disease.

InCurA is revolutionizing MENA's medical landscape with AI-optimized, locally produced hemostatic solutions like CurASeal, bridging the gap between innovation and accessibility while reducing reliance on global imports.

A combination of privacy-protective age verification systems utilizing digital forms of identification and AI, parental controls that are readily available and easy to use, and greater transparency from digital platforms would increase children’s safety and privacy, encourage innovation in improved safety and privacy controls, and better inform policymakers and parents on next steps to protect children.

Mexico's newly elected president, Claudia Sheinbaum, can reverse President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's anti-innovation policies toward genetically modified maize, and improve the lives of small farmers across Mexico.

The current scope of University-Industry (U-I) collaboration in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) opens opportunities for research to progress in innovative directions.

Regulation in the digital sector should only be necessary to remedy market failure that cannot be addressed by the current legal framework, which simply is not true.

As Brazil crafts its own Digital Markets Act in the mold of the EU’s, it should be aware of the potential shortcomings and unsubstantiated advantages associated with such wide-ranging economic regulation within the digital market landscape.