There are significant regional differences in global Internet user penetration, with 93% of developed countries covered by the Internet, compared to 28% in Sub-Saharan Africa.23 This digital divide is reflected in the dimensions of both infrastructure and digital literacy: while Europe has 89% coverage of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH), Latin America is still reliant on wireless broadband technology, with an average download rate of 1/32th of Europe’s. Data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows that high-income countries contribute to the digital economy in a gradient that deepens the divide. Europe’s average download rate is only 1/32. Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows that the contribution of the digital economy in high-income countries has reached 58% of GDP, far exceeding the average of developing countries, which is 23%6.
The United States continues the framework of the National Strategy for Cyberspace Security, increasing the cybersecurity budget to $18.6 billion in 2025, and focusing on quantum encryption and AI threat detection systems.14 The European Union has passed the Digital Services Act to establish a chain of responsibility for platforms, and mandated that Internet companies shorten their response time for content audits to two hours.26 Japan is focusing on 6G research and development, and the United States has adopted a new technology governance paradigm. Japan, on the other hand, is focusing on 6G R&D and holds 41% of global patent holdings in the field of terahertz communications, forming a technological barrier.5 Emerging countries present technology dependency characteristics, with 78% of cloud computing services in Southeast Asia relying on Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure architecture.5
North America maintains its position as a source of innovation, with Silicon Valley enterprises dominating 83% of the world’s open-source project code contributions.46 Europe’s industrial Internet is accelerating convergence, with the number of connected devices on Germany’s ‘Industry 4.0’ platform exceeding 240 million, enabling real-time production data interaction.4 South Korea has completed its nationwide SA 5G network coverage, and the consumption rate of 8K Ultra HD content has reached 37%, while the consumption rate of 8K Ultra HD content has increased to 37%. Content consumption accounted for 37%, giving rise to an industrial singularity of 62% annual growth in the penetration rate of XR devices.5 In India, relying on the ‘Digital India’ strategy, the cultivation of a local Internet giant Paytm user scale exceeded 400 million, forming the reverse export mode of payment technology.23
Cyberspace has become a new battleground for ideology, and the EU disinformation monitoring system shows that the dissemination rate of politically inaccurate information will increase by 2.7 times in 2024.2 The behavioural patterns of digital natives have been alienated, and a survey in the UK shows that the average daily screen usage of teenagers has exceeded 7.2 hours, and the fragmentation index of attention has increased by 189% compared with that of 2015. 3. Developing countries show the double-edged sword effect of digital empowerment: Kenya’s mobile payment coverage rate of 87% has improved financial inclusion, but has spawned a new type of network fraud cases with an annual increase of 63%23.
The current global Internet development presents the structural contradiction of ‘accelerated technology iteration’ and ‘lagging governance capacity’. According to the World Bank’s estimation, an average annual investment of USD 340 billion is needed to bridge the digital divide, equivalent to 18% of the global ICT industry’s output value.23 Driven by disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing, the Internet is evolving from a connectivity tool to a basic operating system for civilisation, and its future development will depend on the synergistic innovations of the construction of a technological and ethical framework and the mechanism for sharing social costs.14 The Internet has also become an important tool for the development of civilisation. Its future development will depend on the construction of a technological ethical framework and the synergistic innovation of social cost-sharing mechanisms14.
