Data assets to be included in GDP from 2025

It is reported that in 2025, the System of National Accounts (SNA) will treat data assets as fixed assets that are used over several years, rather than as intermediate consumption that is consumed within a year. Data assets that will be one of the components of GDP include online shopping history, smartphone location data, health data, and weather data, among others. The UN is also considering using the labor costs associated with data assets to measure the value of these assets.

Since GDP is a measure of a country's gross output, the production of goods and services, and is also calculated as the value of the income derived from that activity and the total expenditures on final goods and services, this change is expected to increase nominal GDP.  Japan's nominal GDP was 607.9 trillion yen in the April-June period of 2024, and is expected to increase by 14 trillion yen (+2.3%).  Since other countries will also swing upward depending on the progress of DX (Digitalization), we will see how the ranking would be later on.  Now, if the USD/JPY rate changes significantly, it would be tricky to read the international comparative ranking on a dollar basis, but the world runs on U.S. dollars, and all international statistics are based on U.S. dollars, so we should take that into account.

The significance of these changes in calculations coming out in 2025, when AI will be the catalyst to accelerate the DX trend so far, is meaningful: even GDP per capita will be affected by this change, and more attention will be paid to the individual "data asset" gap regarding not just the generative AI's but also other AI and DX related products and services   The impact of the proliferation of AI-enabled cars, robots, and IoT devices on GDP seems to be increasingly relevant.

Of course, as the use of AI expands to include smartphones, computers, online shopping, and other services used by individuals, the barriers to IT use will fall for a segment of the population that has been uncomfortable with it, even without more knowledge than before, and whether or not to use AI or IT will become the norm, as it is now, so how I would like to see how the numbers will change.

*The System of National Accounts (SNA) is the internationally agreed upon recommended standard for measuring economic activity. Describing coherent macroeconomic calculations, recording how production is distributed among consumers, firms, governments, and foreign countries, and showing how income generated from production flows and is allocated to consumption, savings, and investment, national accounts are one of the foundations of macroeconomic statistics.