UpbeatSingapore tops Asia-Pacific's digital league — and the fastest climbers behind it are the real story
Singapore leads Asia-Pacific in the GSMA's Digital Nations Index 2026, the mobile industry's scorecard of 22 regional economies — but the movement underneath matters more than the top spot. Innovation scores improved in 14 of the 22 economies, and cybersecurity scores rose in seven, including India and Japan. The foundations are spreading, too: Bangladesh and Fiji launched commercial 5G services in September 2025, followed by Sri Lanka in December and Cambodia in January 2026 — next-generation networks arriving in places that started far behind. Japan is investing in making advanced chips at home: its Rapidus venture secured ¥267.6 billion (about $1.7 billion) in government and private funding in February 2026 toward producing 2-nanometre semiconductors by 2027. Singapore, meanwhile, is aiming for 100,000 'AI-bilingual' workers by 2029 — people who pair industry expertise with practical AI skills. The GSMA's caution is part of the good news: infrastructure alone is not enough, and the report pushes countries on reliability, backup power and disaster recovery — the unglamorous work that makes digital gains last.
SDG 9 · Industry, innovation and infrastructure