Digital Progress and Trends Report 2025: Strengthening AI Foundations

The recent rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) has outpaced society’s ability to fully grasp its implications. This 2025 edition of the Digital Progress and Trends Report (DPTR) explores how low- and middle-income countries can harness AI to drive inclusive and sustainable development—and avoid being left behind. The report introduces the 4Cs, the foundations essential for AI adoption, adaptation, and innovation: connectivity, compute, context, and competency. Drawing on rich, novel data sets, this DPTR benchmarks countries across the 4Cs, analyzes supply and demand dynamics, and identifies market failures and externalities where policy action is urgently needed.
The DPTR relies on data from a variety of open and proprietary data sources. The data visualization microsite associated with the DPTR displays only the data sources that have been licensed for public use. For details on licensing, please consult specific indicator pages.