• The 2024 “Technology as a Force for Good” report, published today by Force for Good, highlights that technology leveraging AI [and industrial technologies] can solve close to 50% of all the SDGs, despite a total $175 trillion funding need for the goals.
• The report identifies ten technological solutions which can help the world reach the SDGs if scaled and deployed globally.
• Universal broadband connectivity and AI are capable of achieving 24% of the SDGs alone.
• Report also highlights US is leading the global race in advancing 19 transformational technologies, including AI, in terms of new patents and scale of investment, followed closely by China and the EU, with India expected to rise to join too.

Force for Good, a foundation promoting and advocating secure, sustainable and advanced development, today publishes its second annual Technology as a Force for Good report, “Technology Driving the Transition to a Superior Future”. The report demonstrates the importance of technology in delivering global security and sustainability, given its role as the biggest catalyst for change in human history.

As 2024 begins and the world faces a series of political, social, economic, and environmental crises, Force for Good’s report identifies ten existing technology solutions that can achieve nearly 50% of all of the UN’s SDGs, if they are successfully scaled and deployed globally.

These ten solutions are; (i) Universal Broadband Connectivity, (ii) Generative AI, (iii) The ‘India Stack”, (iv) E-Commerce Platforms, (v) Digital and Telehealth, (vi) E-Learning Platforms, (vii) Gene Edited AgTech, (viii) Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems, (ix) Green Hydrogen, and (x) Water Purification and Treatment Technologies.

Among the highlighted solutions, the delivery of (reliable and affordable) global broadband connectivity has among the biggest potential impacts on the goals, capable of achieving 19% of the SDGs. Combined with generative AI, this total increases even further to 24%.

In addition, the report highlights how technology continues to be central to global progress and geopolitical competition. The digital economy is expected to represent more than 20% of global GDP by next year, with AI potentially adding up to $26 trillion of economic value annually by the end of the decade. The “Technology as a Force for Good” series has identified 19 digital and digitally enabled core technologies (including AI, IoT, Big Data, Quantum Computing, Autonomous Vehicles, Renewables and more) at the heart of the emerging Information Age, which have become targets of increased competition between major countries and power blocs given their potential to confer geopolitical and geo-economic power.

The report outlines the US currently leads these core technologies that determine the future, in terms of new patents and scale of investment, backed by its leading geopolitical positioning and capital markets. Yet, its position is at risk due to government indebtedness, internal political divisions and politicization of, and resistance to, the energy and sustainability transition. While the EU’s market size and regulatory superiority provides it with the important rule-setting capability in future tech, China has effectively drawn level with the EU across key strategic assets such as market capitalization, GDP and trade and has already overtaken it in terms of R&D patent filings across nine of the 19 technologies.

India is well positioned as the fourth significant power for the future behind the US, China, and the EU, in terms of wealth, market cap, defense spending, GDP and trade, reflecting its ongoing transformation from a developing to a middle-income country, with significant population scale and market potential.

The 19 core technologies Force for Good has identified will be the subject of the pursuit of power, massive wealth creation and, if used well, prosperity for all. These technologies and other solutions can create a sustainable, secure, and superior future that levels up the world, and results in capital deployment at scale. Force for Good is now calling on the UN, countries, and companies across the world to enter a race to deploy these technologies so the world can enter the next phase of development.

Ketan Patel, Chairman of Force for Good, said: “With one foot in the twentieth century and one in the 21^st century, the current trajectory to dangerous and destructive conflicts needs to be replaced with a positive mission to solutions that provide human security for all. Our work shows that the SDGs are deliverable using today’s technologies and solutions, and AI is set to be a powerful force in making that happen. This requires the tech industry to take the lead in making history by rolling out technology at scale across the world and driving the world into the next era. The resulting prosperity might be our best chance of leveraging every one of us a force for good in the world.”