Global Digital Divides in the 2020s: spatial and multivariate analysis

The goal of this paper is to understand the global geographic patterns of the technology access, infrastructure, and purposeful ICT uses, with special attention given to AI uses in government, the technology sector, scientific research, and AI’s relationship to infrastructure. The paper also considers purposeful uses of the internet and ICT infrastructure. The correlates of ICT and AI variables are analyzed to try to understand their relationship to socioeconomic, education, economic, cost, regulation, and freedom factors for a large sample of. The overall objective is to explore and explain world trends, relationships, and spatial patterns of ICT and AI related factors for a large group of nations.