Since 2014, Sweden has been in second or third place in the union, but this year the Netherlands took the bronze position and Sweden slipped off the podium, reports The European portal. At the top this year is Finland, followed by Denmark.
Sweden performs well and is above the EU average, even if progress is not as fast as before, notes the EU Commission – which ranks the member states’ digitization every year in the Desi (Digital Economy and Society Index) report.
The ranking is divided into four main categories and in one of them, connectivity, Sweden has slipped to ninth place. Sweden is well below the EU average for 5G coverage in populated areas, with 18 percent compared to an average of 66 percent, the commission notes.
Swedish companies also find it difficult to fill vacancies in the information and communication technology sector.
On the other hand, Swedish companies are good at adopting new and advanced technology at a fast pace and in this area Sweden is in third place among the EU countries.
That development is being driven forward by significant collaboration between academia and business in areas such as artificial intelligence, cloud services, high-performance computing systems and quantum computing technology, according to the commission.