Most Technologically Advanced Countries In The World 2019

Nations compete for capital, investment, knowledge, and innovation: who is number 1?

In the 20^th century, Russia was one of the main contenders in the Cold War arms race yet Russia is hardly relevant to the 21^st century global tech race as nations compete for capital, investment, knowledge, and innovation at a time when change happens at the speed of a tweet.

That is just one of the startling findings to emerge from Global Finance’s ranking of national tech strength. To determine where a country stands in the global tech race, we used four integrated metrics, three of which serve as standard measures of the availability and prevalence of technology: internet users as a proportion of the population; smartphone users as a percentage of the population; and LTE users as a percentage of the population. The fourth metric we used is a Digital Competitiveness score developed by the IMD World Competitiveness Center. Their competitiveness score focuses on technological knowledge, readiness for developing new technologies, and the ability to exploit and build on new innovations.

Ranking nations according to these metrics produced interesting results. For example, smaller advanced countries seem to score better than larger ones—Hong Kong and Taiwan are both ranked above Japan, the country that produced game-changing inventions like the Nintendo, the Walkman, and the VCR. This is likely due to the fact that smartphone penetration is higher in Hong Kong and Taiwan. In Hong Kong, approximately 97% of internet searches are done on smartphones, indicating their prevalence.

Another surprising finding is that Kazakhstan, a developing country with a population of only 18 million and a GDP per capita of $8,830, ranks above Italy, China, and Saudi Arabia. This seems shocking considering that Kazakhstan has a much smaller and less developed economy. However, Kazakhstan’s government announced a strategy in 2012 emphasizing technological innovation and investment as a part of its overall mission to become an advanced country. The government expanded internet access and smartphone penetration while working to improve its digital competitiveness, thus giving it a relatively strong score.

Perhaps the biggest or most shocking anomaly is Russia’s poor showing, being ranked 47^th out of the 67 countries on the list. Russia does poorly across all metrics, with low scores on smartphone penetration as well as digital competitiveness. In fact, Ukraine is ranked two slots above Russia despite having a GDP 14 times smaller. Perhaps this is because Ukraine long served as a technological hub of the former USSR and currently structures its education and business interests towards promoting its information technology sector.

Some of the rankings are less surprising. Every one of the top 20 countries has a developed economy and European countries with advanced economies lead the pack, making up four of the top five most technologically advanced. However, Asian countries including the U.A.E, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea are all in the top 12, giving the top players in the global tech race a measure of geographic diversity.

Global Finance Ranking of National Tech Strength

Ranking	Country	Composite Score
1	Norway	3.682965
2	Sweden	3.681769
3	Netherlands	3.677732
4	Denmark	3.666274
5	United States	3.65128
6	Singapore	3.618698
7	Finland	3.590665
8	United Arab Emirates	3.587424
9	South Korea	3.552165
10	Hong Kong	3.550809
11	Switzerland	3.550804
12	United Kingdom	3.493129
13	Belgium	3.486736
14	Canada	3.468602
15	Australia	3.400257
16	Luxembourg	3.39885
17	Taiwan	3.37134
18	Spain	3.339395
19	Germany	3.331451
20	Estonia	3.312652
21	Japan	3.277817
22	France	3.272701
23	New Zealand	3.239487
24	Ireland	3.235211
25	Austria	3.230004
26	Qatar	3.216313
27	Lithuania	3.202866
28	Czech Republic	3.184814
29	Israel	3.131437
30	Latvia	2.994696
31	Malaysia	2.987913
32	Portugal	2.966322
33	Slovenia	2.949676
34	Poland	2.937988
35	Hungary	2.930656
36	Kazakhstan	2.92409
37	Italy	2.888797
38	China	2.82051
39	Croatia	2.804712
40	Thailand	2.8023
41	Slovakia	2.757885
42	Saudi Arabia	2.756118
43	Greece	2.698966
44	Ukraine	2.68495
45	Jordan	2.684056
46	Russia	2.683851
47	Argentina	2.678766
48	Romania	2.665403
49	Chile	2.582911
50	Mexico	2.509091
51	Bulgaria	2.495615
52	Turkey	2.46682
53	Iran	2.334855
54	Philippines	2.317305
55	Brazil	2.308031
56	Vietnam	2.301261
57	Peru	2.296431
58	Morocco	2.276783
59	Colombia	2.246969
60	India	2.223931
61	South Africa	2.211977
62	Indonesia	2.079112
63	Venezuela	1.65962
64	Algeria	1.643397
65	Egypt	1.602698
66	Myanmar	1.600593
67	Pakistan	1.567116

Methodology

After compiling the data, 37 countries had data filled in for all four metrics, 30 countries had data filled in for three metrics, and 36 countries had data filled in for two metrics. Once we obtained this raw data, we used statistical tools to equally weight all four variables. We did this by ensuring that the standard error of all the variables are equal. After that, we did a simple equation of adding up all the scores. This provided us a range where a 4 represents the highest technological strength and 0 means the absolute lowest.

We decided to only use countries that had data filled in for three metrics or more to ensure accurate analysis. For the countries with only three metrics, we used linear regression analysis to predict and fill in the missing metric. We did not do this for countries with only two metrics because the margin of error would have been too large. Based off of these scores, we ranked the countries so that their ranking was representative of their scores across all the metrics.