Regions

Rather than resort to heavy-handed content and price regulation to address nonexistent market failures, the CMA should follow the lead of the United States and rely on a tried-and-true, ex post law enforcement framework to address concerns about anticompetitive behavior associated with anti-steering practices by Apple and Google.

The UK is considering new requirements for nudity-scanning software on children's devices that would further expand its controversial online safety regime. While intended to protect children, the proposal would undermine privacy, anonymity, and free speech, and the UK should instead pursue more targeted, privacy-preserving measures.

ITIF believes that in many important respects the Draft Guidance appears to broadly track the EU’s own revised technology transfer guidance (Revised EU Guidance) on technology pools in a largely unproblematic way but rightly declines to follow the Revised EU Guidance’s discussion of the competitive analysis involving licensing negotiation groups.

Designating Microsoft’s business software under the UK's new regulatory framework contradicts the government's stated goals of driving innovation and economic growth, as over-regulating these tools would deter long-term investment and represent an disproportionate, unnecessary exercise of authority when standard competition laws already suffice.

The UK should resist the urge to regulate in haste. Protecting children online is essential, but protection should mean smarter design, stronger safety tools, and greater parental control, not blanket bans that remove technology from young people and choice from families.

Canada should pursue digital sovereignty through contractual safeguards and resilient systems, rather than Canadian ownership requirements that raise costs and create trade risks.

Canada was right to scrap the streaming levy, which would have functioned as a consumption tax on Netflix and Disney+ subscribers without ensuring that the money supported Canadian shows they would actually watch.

The United States has imposed tariffs on Canada and mused about making it the 51st state, and Canadians are reasonably asking what it means to run hospitals and government services on infrastructure operated by firms answerable to US law and, in the end, to US politics.

As U.S.-Canada trade tensions escalate, both countries risk weakening the North American production base they need to compete with China—and turning a manageable dispute into a costly, self-defeating trade war.

Canada risks permanently losing advanced manufacturing as stagnant productivity, weak innovation, and risk aversion undermine its competitiveness. Reversing course requires a national strategy focused on productivity, innovation, and technology-based growth.

A new irrigation technology incorporating AI sensors reduces water use by 30 percent and methane emissions by 47 percent compared to continuous irrigation methods.

Proposed changes to Kenya’s competition regime will hinder, not help its digital economy. Rather than impose substantial changes based on the false premise that digital markets require special treatment, Kenya should use existing enforcement tools to police its growing digital markets.

ITIF’s submission focuses on the ITC’s interest in recent developments in the digital economy for key SSA markets, including national and regional regulatory and policy measures and market conditions that affect digital trade.

When attempting to evaluate the effect that a policy intervention can have on development or innovation, researchers and policymakers routinely look to short-term impacts, both out of urgency and because of the difficulty in maintaining contact with participants over several years.

Over the last decade, mobile money services have brought banking to populations that have lacked formal financial services by allowing users to manage money on their mobile phones. First launched in Kenya in 2007, 96 percent of Kenyan households now use mobile money and can withdraw funds in physical currency from 110,000 agents across the country.

KFTC enforcement data suggests de facto bias against leading American technology companies. Given this record, U.S. policymakers should demand fair treatment for U.S. firms, and South Korean policymakers should reconsider expanding the KFTC’s authority over online platforms.

For policymakers to bolster regional competitiveness in the global economy, they first must know where they stand. This report—coauthored by ITIF and the Institute for Competitiveness, India—benchmarks the 87 regions of India and the United States using 12 commonly available indicators of strength in the knowledge economy, globalization, and innovation capacity.

Japan was a competitor inside the U.S. alliance system. China is a rival trying to replace it. Waiting for China to repeat Japan’s slowdown is not a strategy.

The Proposed Amendment would have the effect of “protecting” startups by frustrating larger firms from acquiring their founders and employees. Adopting such a policy would predictably chill incentives to innovate.

ITIF applauds the Ministry for removing much of the digital-platform specific language from the earlier version of the Draft Law, but remains concerned that what remains in the proposed amendments, especially to Articles 26 and 27, may result in de facto discrimination against digital platforms.

China embraces innovation. America gets in its own way. Conflicting rulebooks and resistance to technological adoption are helping China win and America lose.

A recent study found that in 2025, 57 percent of the world’s top AI researchers received their undergraduate degrees in China, up from 46 percent in 2022.

Japan was a competitor inside the U.S. alliance system. China is a rival trying to replace it. Waiting for China to repeat Japan’s slowdown is not a strategy.

The West held the ladder for the PRC, which is now trying to kick its competitors off the summit. If the United States wants any hope of regaining the top, it must start kicking away the PRC’s ladder by countering its unfair trade practices while building its own with a bold, robust national advanced industry strategy.

China has consistently failed to meet its WTO commitments, continuing to harm U.S. competitiveness. In response, Congress and the USTR should prepare a phased, strategic pathway to revoke China's Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status if Beijing refuses to reform.

The EU’s proposed KIDS ACT risks isolating children from valuable online communities through sweeping restrictions that fail to address specific harms or provide better alternatives.

A German court held Meta liable for fraudulent third-party ads based on how its algorithms rank content, potentially expanding platform liability under the EU’s Digital Services Act. Instead of discouraging platforms from using these algorithms, policymakers should preserve knowledge-based liability protections and focus enforcement on the fraudsters responsible for scam ads.

Europe cannot match the United States and China in closed AI models, but it has an opportunity to lead in open models. The EU should remove regulatory and procurement barriers and foster a global open-model ecosystem.

The EU AI Act disproportionately burdens U.S. AI firms with compliance costs and potential fines that could weaken U.S. competitiveness with China. Europe should simplify its regulatory framework and deepen cooperation with Washington to support innovation and economic growth on both sides of the Atlantic.

For policymakers to bolster the global competitiveness and innovation capacity of their regions, they must first understand their regions’ strengths and weaknesses. This report—by 11 think tanks from the Global Trade and Innovation Policy Alliance (GTIPA)—benchmarks 213 regions of 13 transatlantic countries using 14 commonly available innovation indicators.

The benefits of NGSO systems are likely even greater in other countries than they are in the United States. The United States should lead the way to maximize the benefits of NGSOs around the world and bring other countries along with it.

A survey among 32 think tank members of the Global Trade and Innovation Policy Alliance (GTIPA) across 25 countries finds strong optimism about technological progress, but much less confidence in the global policy environment. Respondents are bullish on emerging technologies and skeptical of recent trade changes, and broadly favor skills and trade openness.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the general-purpose technology of this decade, and possibly even this century, with impacts predicted to be as deep and diffuse as electricity and the Internet. As with other general-purpose technologies in their nascent stages, much still remains uncertain regarding AI’s capacity and direction. This report provides GTIPA members’ perspectives the state of innovation policy on AI around the world, compiling 32 vignettes from 28 think tanks in 30 countries.

Foreign governments increasingly use online speech laws to pressure U.S. platforms into censoring constitutionally protected content, while sovereign immunity leaves American companies with little legal recourse. Wyoming's GRANITE Act offers a promising model, but meaningful protection will ultimately require Congress to amend federal sovereign immunity laws.

Echoing social capitalism, the encyclical gets technology and employment wrong, succumbing to the lump-of-labor fallacy and short-term protection over long-term progress.

The USMCA’s digital trade rules set the global standard. Now, policymakers should modernize them for the age of AI, close loopholes that enable data localization and discriminatory taxes, and build a more secure, competitive North American digital economy.

Brazil has become a hotbed for Chinese investment, with more than $6 billion in incoming Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2025, accounting for over 10 percent of China’s total FDI that year.

A bill proposing ex ante regulation of digital markets in Brazil would harm efficiency and innovation. Given the significance of this bill, the Brazilian legislature should not proceed with a motion to bypass typical civil procedures and debate.

Brazil’s Digital Markets Bill promises to tame tech giants, but in reality, it threatens to import Europe’s flawed regulatory experiment—punishing innovation more than protecting consumers

This report ranks more than 200 regions across Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and the United States on 13 commonly available indicators of innovation competitiveness, and offers policymakers a guide to bolstering regional and national innovation capacity.