he path to economic resilience begins with robust digital infrastructure that empowers individuals to take active part in the digital economy rather than simply extracting value from individuals as consumers or data sources. While today's $3 trillion data economy concentrates wealth in the hands of tech giants, a reimagined infrastructure could allow society more widely to take part in, and prosper from, a new data economy.
Resilient digital infrastructure must be hybrid by design—combining public foundations with private innovation to harmonize a variety of industries. This means creating open, inclusive digital systems which are provided as public goods such as digital identity, consent management platforms, and data exchange protocols. When governments and enterprises work together to build these core utilities with strong privacy protections and interoperability standards, they create fertile ground for businesses to develop services that actually improve lives.
The decentralization of AI systems represents a crucial component of this resilient architecture. Current AI paradigms face limitations in domains where data and knowledge are distributed across organizations and geographies. By addressing technical challenges around privacy, verifiability, incentives, orchestration, and user experience, we can enable collaboration among entities that previously couldn't or wouldn't work together.
For economic prosperity to flow from this infrastructure, we need mechanisms that convert data from an extracted resource into a participatory asset class. Data cooperatives and trust frameworks would allow individuals to pool their data and collectively negotiate its use, transforming millions of people into micro-entrepreneurs whose product is their own data. This would dramatically widen participation in the digital economy, especially among previously marginalized communities.
The economic impact extends beyond individual gains. When data flows more freely (with proper safeguards), smaller firms gain access to insights previously available only to giants. This lowers barriers to entry, fosters competition, and enables innovation from the ground up rather than from the top down. New businesses will emerge specializing in facilitating user–driven data exchange for LLMs, creating jobs and economic activity throughout the intermediary sectors.
This virtuous cycle—where users share data, receive value, build trust, and make more data available—converts what is currently an extractive practice into a regenerative economic model that balances AI profit with social good while ensuring everyone can participate in digital prosperity.
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Building resilient digital infrastructure for shared prosperity
Photo by Julia Sadowska on Unsplash
April 23, 2025
The path to economic resilience begins with robust digital infrastructure designed to empower individuals to be part of the digital economy. Crucial to this architecture is collaboration between governments and enterprises, alongside the decentralization of AI systems, writes Nikos Acuña.
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he path to economic resilience begins with robust digital infrastructure that empowers individuals to take active part in the digital economy rather than simply extracting value from individuals as consumers or data sources. While today's $3 trillion data economy concentrates wealth in the hands of tech giants, a reimagined infrastructure could allow society more widely to take part in, and prosper from, a new data economy.
Resilient digital infrastructure must be hybrid by design—combining public foundations with private innovation to harmonize a variety of industries. This means creating open, inclusive digital systems which are provided as public goods such as digital identity, consent management platforms, and data exchange protocols. When governments and enterprises work together to build these core utilities with strong privacy protections and interoperability standards, they create fertile ground for businesses to develop services that actually improve lives.
The decentralization of AI systems represents a crucial component of this resilient architecture. Current AI paradigms face limitations in domains where data and knowledge are distributed across organizations and geographies. By addressing technical challenges around privacy, verifiability, incentives, orchestration, and user experience, we can enable collaboration among entities that previously couldn't or wouldn't work together.
For economic prosperity to flow from this infrastructure, we need mechanisms that convert data from an extracted resource into a participatory asset class. Data cooperatives and trust frameworks would allow individuals to pool their data and collectively negotiate its use, transforming millions of people into micro-entrepreneurs whose product is their own data. This would dramatically widen participation in the digital economy, especially among previously marginalized communities.
The economic impact extends beyond individual gains. When data flows more freely (with proper safeguards), smaller firms gain access to insights previously available only to giants. This lowers barriers to entry, fosters competition, and enables innovation from the ground up rather than from the top down. New businesses will emerge specializing in facilitating user–driven data exchange for LLMs, creating jobs and economic activity throughout the intermediary sectors.
This virtuous cycle—where users share data, receive value, build trust, and make more data available—converts what is currently an extractive practice into a regenerative economic model that balances AI profit with social good while ensuring everyone can participate in digital prosperity.
