Dispatch from Digital Planet: June 2026

Dispatches

Dispatch from Digital Planet: June 2026

June 12, 2026

Digital Planet > Dispatches > Dispatch from the Digital Planet: June 2026

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RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT

Digital Evolution Index 2026

The latest Digital Evolution Index
explores a fundamental shift in the digital economy: the move from a single, interconnected digital marketplace to a world of increasingly fragmented digital ecosystems. Drawing on data from 125 economies, the index highlights the growing importance of digital resilience, AI capability, and adaptability in an era of shifting digital power centers.

PERSPECTIVES

What a Fragmenting Digital Economy Means for Global Competition: Bhaskar Chakravorti

Harvard Business Review

Digitalization has reshaped the global economy for 25 years, but emerging forces—from the U.S.- China tech rivalry and geopolitics to A's uneven impacts—are fragmenting what was once a more unified digital landscape. The 2026 Digital Evolution Index reveals that digital progress is now shaped as much by power competition, regulation, and computing capacity as by markets and technology. As a result, business leaders must reassess where and how digital value will be created, building strategic optionality to navigate divergent digital trajectories, rapid technological leaps, and declining global trust.

The prophet of the 'Wired Belt' says capitalism is finally eating itself: Bhaskar Chakravorti

Fortune

AI job displacement is hitting hardest in high-earning knowledge-economy metros — the 'Wired Belt' — not struggling factory towns. Drawing on Digital Planet's American AI Jobs Risk Index, 9.3 million jobs and $757 billion in annual income are at risk, with programmers, analysts, and managers most exposed. The self-defeating irony: companies are funding the very AI that's hollowing out their own workforce and customer base.

The short seller's argument nobody on the coming mega IPO roadshow wants you to make: Bhaskar Chakravorti

Fortune

With Anthropic and OpenAI racing toward mega-IPOs at near-trillion-dollar valuations, investors are missing a fundamental problem: frontier AI is built for the top 15% of the global market, and corporate buyers aren't yet seeing the ROI. The real opportunity lies in unglamorous infrastructure — legacy modernization for banks and governments and credit scoring and fraud detection for the hundreds of millions of mobile-wallet users in markets like India, Brazil, and Kenya who still can't access formal credit. History says the durable winners won't be the flashiest IPO names, but whoever owns the layer everyone building on AI has to pay for.

NEW CORE MEMBERS

We are thrilled to expand our research capabilities by welcoming two outstanding new Research Analysts to the Digital Planet team!

Max Agigian

Research Analyst, Digital Planet

Xiaofei (Sophia) Chen

Research Analyst, Digital Planet

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IN THE NEWS

What Colleges Are Missing in the Job-Market Panic | The Chronicle of Higher Education

9.3 Million U.S. Jobs at Risk from AI Automation-$200B in Lost Income Exposed |
World Today News

The China shock hollowed out factory towns. This professor thinks the AI shock is coming for your urban coffee shop | Fortune

Forget the Rust Belt or the Sun Belt. The 'Wired Belt' may be the next frontier of American political power | Fortune

How Ghana's National AI Strategy will reshape the next decade | myjoyonline

ABOUT DIGITAL PLANET

Digital Planet is an interdisciplinary research initiative of The Fletcher School's Institute for Business in the Global Context (IBGC) dedicated to understanding the impact of digital innovation on the world and providing actionable insights for policymakers, businesses, investors, and innovators.

AI and jobs, AI data center boom, AI economic impact, AI Jobs Risk Index, Artificial Intelligence, artificial intelligence policy, Bhaskar Chakravorti, digital economy, digital innovation research, Dispatches from the Digital Planet, future of work, global digital transformation, inclusive digital policy, Inclusive Policy, India AI, Job Disruption, Skilling and Education, Small AI, Technology Policy, United States, US Workforce, Wired Belts

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