Information and Communications Technology

The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry is evolving at a rapid pace while serving as a catalyst for digital entrepreneurship in a new data-driven world interconnected via the internet and cyberspace. ICT supports and enables the day-to-day operation of modern societies, while providing newfound opportunities for economic growth through digital trade. In order to maintain the ICT industry’s steep growth trajectory, policymakers must focus on three areas: (1) cybersecurity to protect increasingly vulnerable critical infrastructure; (2) privacy to protect citizens’ rights in an age of data collection and exchange; and (3) the growing shortfall of technology workers needed to maintain innovation leadership. 

Today, information and communications technology (ICT) connects over 60 percent of the world’s population to digital markets, schools, governments, and each other. The ICT industry has spurred economic growth in ways that were unimaginable when the first computers were connected with a dial-up telephone connection in 1965. It is not only the production and sale of ICT goods and services that have driven economic growth, but also the internet, the broader cyberspace domain, and the data that ICT and the internet have made available that has enabled a new age of digital entrepreneurship.

In addition to opening new economic possibilities, ICT enables a cyberspace that provides critical capabilities impacting nearly every institution in modern societies, to include critical infrastructure, data and information management, distributed learning, global logistics, military command and control, and much more. Considered as a global common, access to and freedom of movement within the cyberspace domain are critical to the national security of the United States (U.S.), its allies and partners, with direct impact to U.S. strategic objectives to: (1) strengthen U.S. national defense, (2) put the U.S. economy to work; (3) enable the U.S. to lead in science, technology, and innovation; (4) shape the global economic order; and (5) enable the U.S. to live its values, such as free speech, free access to information, and equality.

The Eisenhower School’s ICT Industry Study (IS) analyzed various aspects of the ICT industry. The IS reviewed today’s technology trends, such as cloud computing, the Internet-of-Things (IoT), and big data, as well as game-changing technological capabilities on the horizon, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing. The IS also explored the human dimension of the ICT industry, arguably the most critical element in a world of machine learning and digital assistants. Lastly, the IS analyzed the policy implications of today’s ICT-driven world in terms of impact to the digital economy; the need to acquire a new generation of technology-oriented workers; the growing exchange of information and data, and related privacy concerns; and implications to national security. This paper provides the ICT Industry Study’s analysis of the industry along with additional insight into specific areas that warrant added focus from national leadership and decision makers. 

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