The Challenges of the Digital Economy

Abstract

The problem of transforming the economy into a digital one is discussed. The main challenges the digital economy poses to society, the state and business in the technological field are given. The characteristics of the digitalization of the economy are presented, including the rapid accumulation of digital data, the creation of a global information infrastructure, the formation of a new information sphere of people’s lives, the exponential increase in the rate of introduction of digital technologies and the emergence of new scientific and technical directions, the radical change in social relations, the transformation of old models of activity, wide geoinformatization. Examples of digital economy projects of developed countries - Germany, USA, Great Britain, Japan - are given. The conclusion is drawn about the main emphasis of the digital economy programs adopted by the developed countries. The stages of industrial revolutions, showing a change in technological waves from the advent of a steam engine in Industry 1, the automotive industry and electrification in Industry 2, the development of cybernetics in Industry 3, to the advent of digital production and the merging of the virtual and real worlds in Industry 4.0, are presented. The end-to-end technologies defined in the “Digital Economy of the Russian Federation” national program are listed. Four groups of new scientific and technical areas serving as the basis for the planned transformation of the economy into the digital one (digitalization, geoinformatization, datification and materialization) are identified. Digitalization helps create a digital environment to support all activities. Geoinformatization allows building more effective models of activity due to the addition of spatial positioning technologies to the functional areas of information systems. Datification allows the introduction of new adoption models based on big data analysis. Materialization implements digital production of objects without direct human participation and traditional material technologies.