The digital technology sector generates around 4% of the European Union’s GDP; the added value of this sector in the EU, covering the product range from components to software, exceeds EUR 580 billion and accounts for almost 10% of the added value of total industrial activity; in the most economically developed EU countries, further digitisation of industry is expected to result in productivity growth of up to 8% in ten years, leading to an increase in employment of 6%; already nearly one third of the growth in total industrial production in Europe is due to digital technologies.
Progress in digital technologies combined with other key pro-development technologies are changing the way products and related services are designed, manufactured and commercialised; progress in technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of things, virtual reality, cloud computing, data analytics are transforming products, processes and business models across all sectors. The result is new industrial patterns within changing global value chains.