Data-intensive technologies, like AI, are increasingly widespread. In this talk, David Yang of Harvard University, along with his co-authors, Martin Beraja from MIT and Noam Yutchman from London School of Economics, argue that the direction of innovation and growth in data-intensive economies may be crucially shaped by the state because: (i) the state is a key collector of data and (ii) data is sharable across uses within firms, potentially generating economies of scope. We study a prototypical setting: facial recognition AI in China.

For more on the Digital Initiative, check out https://digital.hbs.edu​.