“Ukraine is so poor” is the mantra of recent events featuring the largest country in Europe (by territory), such as impeachment of the President Trump and the unfortunate downing of the Ukrainian Airlines plane over Iran. However, this “poor country” is rated above formerly feared superpower Russia by Global Finance’s 2020 technology rating.

Winners and losers of the global technology race

“In the 20th century, Russia was one of the main contenders in the Cold War arms race yet Russia is hardly relevant to the 21st century global tech race as nations compete for capital, investment, knowledge, and innovation at a time when change happens at the speed of a tweet,” Marc Getzoff writes for Global Finance magazine 2020 review of the most technologically advanced countries.

In fact, Russia only scored a pitiful 46th position among 67 contenders in technological strength. Even Ukraine managed to score #44.

The surprise of the rating is Kazakhstan. The nation of Borat is rated at #36 ahead of Italy, China, and its “big brother” and long-term ally Russia.

How the countries were rated

The strength of participants was measured through several criteria to determine accessibility and width of the use of technology.

1. The share of Internet users as compared to the total population.
2. The share of population using smart phones.
3. What percentage of them are using 4G networks or higher.
4. Digital Competiveness score, which includes knowledge of technology and ability to use it, as well as develop it further.

Because of the way the scores were calculated, it seems that smaller and advanced nations such as Hong Kong (10), Singapore (6), or United Arab Emirates (8) achieved rather high positions in the rating. It is surprising, given that Japan is only #21.

“Hong Kong and Taiwan are both ranked above Japan, the country that produced game-changing inventions like the Nintendo, the Walkman, and the VCR,” Getzoff points out. This could be simply due to the fact that about 97% of people there use smart phones to search Internet.

The poor results by Russia became a surprise as well. Not only Russia scored low across all categories, its loss to Ukraine, which GDP is 14 times smaller than that of the Russian Federation, is pure embarrassment.

We aren’t even mentioning the fact that Baltic countries of the former Soviet Union (Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia) are placed on positions from 20 to 30, way above.

Recently Ukraine ordered a 10-times increase of the bonus for new inventions, Segodnya.ua reports discussing the news. The country is also increasing its spending on education by 14% in 2020.

Top-10 most technologically advanced countries of 2020

The top positions in the rating are occupied by the usually quiet Northern European countries, with three Asian economies (Singapore, South Korea, and Hong Kong), the leading power of the Arabic world UAE, and, of course, the USA.

1. Norway
2. Sweden
3. Netherlands
4. Denmark
5. United States
6. Singapore
7. Finland
8. United Arab Emirates
9. South Korea
10. Hong Kong

Switzerland didn’t make the top-10, following at #11.

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