Switzerland maintains 5th position in Digital Competitiveness Ranking

The World Digital Competitiveness Ranking, produced by the IMD World Competitiveness Center (WCC) measures the capacity and readiness of 64 economies to adopt and explore digital technologies as a key driver for economic transformation in business, government and wider society. The 2023 edition highlights the key factors that can help countries combine prosperity and economic development with digital transformation and the development of AI solutions to create the digital nations of 2024.

Last year, the United States fell to second place for the first time since the 2017 launch of the annual ranking, but this year, it has achieved robust results across all three of the broad categories (“factors”) measured by the economists: Knowledge, technology, and future readiness. This outstanding performance pushed it back to the first place. The Netherlands climbed four positions to rank second, followed by Singapore and Denmark in the third and fourth positions.

Switzerland also remained in the top 5 for the second time. The performance in the broad category of 'Knowledge' was particularly outstanding. This category groups criteria (Talent, Training and education, and Scientific concentration) that indicate what the know-how of a given economy will likely be when it comes to discovering, understanding and building new technologies. The second-best results were seen in the broad category of Future readiness.

While there was a slight improvement in the category of Technology, Switzerland is still lagging in individual attitudes. Performance in the subcategory ‘Adaptive attitudes’ was the poorest across the entire ranking range, followed by Technology Framework. This could be attributed to the country’s existing frameworks, decisions and development pace in the past year, as Professor Arturo Bris, Director of the WCC observed. He said: “Switzerland rejected the digital identity program, concerns about transparency are extremely high, digital banking isn’t as developed as in many other countries, and it doesn’t have Amazon or Google. This is all despite excellent digital infrastructure, amazing regulation, development of digital talent, and the ability of its companies to transform. It distinguished Switzerland from Singapore or the UAE (12^th).

The current unstable political, social and economic affairs influenced Switzerland’s performance. According to the report, the country encountered a myriad of challenges in 2023. Among them was the failure to ensure sustained economic growth amid the conflict in Ukraine and higher inflation, keeping inflation low and the financial market stable, preventing protectionism and maintaining open markets, strengthening competition and reducing the administrative burden in domestic sectors, and increasing the sustainability of social welfare and pension systems.

Click here to learn more about the individual country ranks.

(Press release/RAN)
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