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Optimizing the use of digital skills and technologies could generate $2 trillion of additional global economic output by 2020, according to a new study by Accenture. The study also reveals the vast role digital plays in economic activity, with more than one-fifth of the worlds gross domestic product (GDP) attributed to some form of digital skills, capital and goods and services.
The Accenture Strategy report, Digital Disruption: the Growth Multiplier, provides a new and comprehensive measure of the scale of the digital economy in 11 major countries. It estimates the value added to GDP by hardware, software and related technologies and by workers who need these digital assets to do their jobs. It also calculates the value of intermediate digital goods and services used in production.
A little more than one-fifth (22 percent) of world output is linked to this digital economy of skills and capital. The US is the worlds most digital economy, with existing digital investments accounting for 33 percent of its output. Forty-three percent of the U.S. labor force and 26 percent of its accumulated capital are capable of supporting digital related activity. The digital economy in other markets varies from more than 30 percent in the UK and Australia to 10 percent in China.