---
id: "quote-erosion-global-economy"
type: "quote"
source_timestamps: ["¶4"]
tags: ["fragmentation", "globalization"]
related: ["concept-digital-evolution-index", "framework-digital-evolution-matrix"]
speaker: "Authors"
speakers: ["Bhaskar Chakravorti", "Abidemi Adisa", "Christina Filipovic", "Xue Niu"]
quote: "If the early years of digitalization connected countries, supply chains, and markets through common standards, platforms, and technologies, our latest findings illustrate an emerging, inconvenient truth: the erosion of a singular \\\\\\\"global digital economy.\\\\\\\""
sources: ["futures"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-futures"
originDay: 2
articleStem: "hbr-foci-75-fragmenting-digital-economy"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/06/what-a-fragmenting-digital-economy-means-for-global-competition"
sourceTitle: "What a Fragmenting Digital Economy Means for Global Competition"
---
# Erosion of a Singular Global Digital Economy

> "If the early years of digitalization connected countries, supply chains, and markets through common standards, platforms, and technologies, our latest findings illustrate an emerging, inconvenient truth: the erosion of a singular 'global digital economy.'"
> — The Authors

This quote encapsulates the vault's central **thesis** (see [[moc]]): the unified global digital economy has fragmented, motivating the country taxonomy of the [[framework-digital-evolution-matrix]] and the measurement in the [[concept-digital-evolution-index]].

> **Counter-perspective (enrichment):** Some scholars argue global platforms and standards (HTTP, TCP/IP, cloud providers, open-source, cross-border SaaS) still underpin a deeply integrated digital economy — fragmentation is real in *governance, data flows, and hardware supply chains*, but the "post-global" framing may overstate the breakdown of shared technological foundations.


## Related across articles
- [[claim-geopolitics-challenges-multinationals]]
- [[concept-country-level-ai-ecosystem]]