Technology has great global promise to deliver solutions that address challenges such as climate change and health care. But it also poses real risks, underscoring the need for cybersecurity, data security, and responsible AI.
By Adham Abouzied, MD and partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Cairo; and Hamid Maher, MD and senior partner and head of BCG Tech Hub in Africa, Casablanca
To capture both the promise and address the potential risk of technology, a coordinated international approach is essential in two areas. First, technologies need to help ensure equity. Second, leaders need to avoid missteps as powerful new technologies take hold.
Collaborative mechanisms such as data sharing, experience sharing, and open source can unlock enormous value for the world and accelerate technological innovation. AI and other new technologies also demand collaborative ecosystems to ensure responsible development and deployment.
The Value of Open Collaboration
The power of sharing technological innovations collaboratively and responsibly has already been proven in different areas.
- Standards, such as ISO, offer an excellent example of a collaboration mechanism that creates massive value in supply chains and still allows individual players to create unique innovations and gain competitive advantage.
- Linux, which is freely available to all, has evolved into one of the most robust operating systems in the world.
- Google DeepMind is making some of its research, data sets, and code available in open-source environments to the broader research community in order to accelerate scientific progress.
- The Human Genome Project, an international collaboration that successfully sequenced the human genome and made it publicly available, has improved the practice of medicine and generated nearly $1-trillion in economic impact.
- The new wave of Generative AI systems, such as ChatGPT, would not have emerged without openly available information on the internet.
These forms of open collaboration favour inclusion and incorporate features, such as peer review, to maintain checks and balances. And collaboration does not prevent stakeholders from creating competitive advantages that they can monetise – because competitive layers can be built on top of these collaborations. If enough private sector players embrace these mechanisms to tackle systemic challenges, we can dramatically accelerate progress toward curing disease, ending hunger, mitigating climate change, and much more.
Accelerating AI and Technology Innovation with Open Collaboration
Here are just some of the forms of collaboration that companies can leverage to unlock value and accelerate technology innovation.
Support global data commons and digital public infrastructure (DPI). Shared global data and public digital infrastructure have enormous potential to drive economic growth and competitive advantage. In agriculture, for example, decision making is hindered by limited aggregation and exchange of data among stakeholders and a lack of interoperable digital infrastructure. Integrated data sets that combine satellite imagery, weather, and soil data would enable farmers to increase their productivity and integration into food value chains and support their adoption of climate-smart practices. Service providers and development partners could also leverage data sets and infrastructure to provide farmers with more affordable credit and insurance, better early warning of crop failures, and improved farm management.
The private sector can also collaborate with the public sector on DPI ecosystems. DPIs can be especially helpful in supporting technology advancement in the Global South.
- In Brazil and India, a DPI composed of digital ID, payments, and data exchange has rapidly accelerated the adoption of real-time payments, creating a fertile context for fintech development and benefiting the public.
- In India, the number of real-time monthly payments grew by five times – from 2,6-billion to 13,3-billion – in a three-year period, and the Reserve Bank of India reported that bank fraud declined by 86%.
Share data across the value chain. Sharing data makes value chains vastly more efficient. By sharing data on greenhouse gas emissions, for example, companies gain a comprehensive view of their carbon footprint – a critical monitoring step. Similarly, shared data across the value chain promotes innovation.
Using a technology-driven approach, the Woolworths Group, Australia and New Zealand’s largest retailer, launched a profit-for-purpose business that drives climate and societal impact by reducing food waste upstream in the value chain. By connecting farmers, wholesale buyers, and food rescue organizations, the organization aims to reduce food waste by 15%, cut CO2 emissions by 10%, and provide 370 million meals to address food insecurity.
Implement responsible AI. Organizations that lead in responsible AI build better products and services, accelerate innovation, and decrease the frequency and severity of system failures. BCG research has shown that AI has the potential to unlock insights that could help mitigate 5% to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 – and significantly bolster climate-related adaptation and resilience initiatives. But AI also brings unique business risks. These include issues related to customers’ trust in the company’s use of the technology, unsafe experimentation with AI within the organisation, and regulatory violations. As time goes on, the potential dangers of AI may become exponentially more serious. International collaboration is needed to resolve complicated ethical questions around AI, safeguard innovation, and reduce risk.
Existing and emerging technologies can help address many of the world’s most urgent challenges, but no individual private company can solve these problems on its own. Stakeholders must work together to publicly aggregate, integrate, and share data that can be used for the common good – and develop global standards for its safe and responsible use. This will require a robust ecosystem of experts who can deliver high-quality technology solutions and data infrastructure, as well as thought leaders to conceptualise high-potential use cases, establish governance, and drive implementation.