Asia’s digital divides mean some can’t afford tech upgrade they need to compete

International Monetary Fund report suggests 'diffusion' - a kind of tech trickle-down - might sort things out

Asia is the biggest user of industrial robots, its residents account for nearly 60 percent of the world's online retail sales, and the region's researchers created the same proportion of patents in digital tech before the pandemic. Yet a report published this week by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) asserts that the region is not digitizing fast enough to avoid a slowdown in productivity growth, and attendant economic unpleasantness....