Digital Nations 2025: Sustaining progress in Asia Pacific through investment

Across the Asia Pacific, digitalisation continues to be a top priority for nations seeking to drive economic growth and foster inclusive, resilient societies. Governments increasingly rely on digitalisation to boost productivity, drive innovation, and enhance national competitiveness amid shifting demographics and growing geopolitical uncertainties. Investment is a key enabler of digitalisation, supporting the development of the five key components – infrastructure, innovation, data governance, security, and people – of a digital nation.

A distinctive feature of the digital investment landscape in Asia Pacific is its diversity of funding sources. Perhaps more than any other region in the world, Asia Pacific benefits from a unique blend of strategic public and multilateral funding that complements private capital across various facets of the digital ecosystem. For example, governments act as catalysts to de-risk and complement private capital, while mobile operators have been at the forefront of efforts to deliver modern connectivity networks. Since 2015, mobile operators in the 21 countries covered in this report have collectively invested almost $440 billion in expanding mobile infrastructure and services.

While the current state of digitalisation in Asia Pacific reflects investments made so far, continued progress will require increased efforts to address the digital investment gap in the region, as indicated by differences between demand growth and uneven supply of digital services, which may either limit the impact of digitalisation or lead to the exclusion of parts of the population. An initial step in addressing this is to review progress to date to understand the extent of the challenges and determine which areas need the greatest focus. Here, the GSMA Digital Nations Index serves as tool to evaluate performance and enable stakeholders to identify areas for potential improvement. This report highlights the investment gap in key areas across Asia Pacific, based on insights from the index, and identifies the following measures to accelerate digital investments in the region:

• Set clear national goals for digital investment – to provide strategic direction and attract private capital by signalling to investors that a country is committed to its digital future.
• Align government policies with digitalisation goals – using a whole-of-government approach to ensure that all departments work towards a shared set of objectives.
• Use government investment to stimulate private capital – public funds act as a catalyst, providing essential seed funding to instil market confidence.
• Avoid regulatory uncertainty – a stable and predictable regulatory environment reduces risk for investors and enable long-term strategic planning.
• Address regional disparities through collaboration – requires collaboration in several key areas, such as policy harmonisation, the sharing of best practices, cybersecurity and data governance, and the development of cross-border digital infrastructure.