Unlocking the Untapped Potential of Bangladesh's Secondary Data Market
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Loading... - Drishya Jalali
- 12 Nov 2024
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Artificial intelligence, or AI, and advanced research have become foundational to modern innovation, enabling breakthroughs across industries, from healthcare diagnostics to precision agriculture and smart city planning. At the core of every powerful AI model lies one critical element: data. Often referred to as "the new oil," data fuels AI and machine learning algorithms, providing insights and capabilities that would otherwise be unattainable. However, without diverse, high-quality datasets, even the most sophisticated AI models fall short.
The global big data market has been experiencing remarkable growth, driven by the increasing demand for robust datasets across industries to support advanced analytics, AI, and machine learning applications. According to Expert Market Research (EMR), the big data market was valued at approximately $311.72 billion in 2023, with projections to reach a staggering $1.09 trillion by 2032, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of around 14.9%. Key sectors contributing to this demand include healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and finance, where companies leverage large data volumes for predictive analytics, operational optimization, and customer insights.
Emerging economies like India and Brazil have begun to harness their population-scale data as a valuable resource, demonstrating the potential to create exportable datasets that power international AI development. Bangladesh stands at the forefront of this opportunity. With over 170 million people, a high population density, and rapid digital adoption, it is uniquely positioned to supply the data needed to meet global AI demands. This vast data reservoir spans sectors from agriculture to healthcare, where insights into local behaviors, health patterns, and market trends could be invaluable on the world stage. If managed strategically, Bangladesh has the potential to transform this underutilized data into a new, export-driven industry that could fuel both economic growth and digital transformation, establishing itself as a crucial player in the global data economy.
Examining Bangladesh's demographics, sector-specific data sources, and regional positioning reveals its unique potential in the data market. With one of the highest population densities globally, Bangladesh facilitates the collection of rich datasets compared to countries like India and Indonesia. Rapid urbanization in cities like Dhaka and Chattogram provides a consistent, high-volume data stream, while high-density urban areas enhance the potential for healthcare data collection, enabling real-time health data crucial for AI applications in disease tracking and predictive healthcare. Additionally, approximately 45% of Bangladesh’s population is under 25, creating a vast pool of digitally active users. With nearly 100 million internet users, this demographic is increasingly engaged in social media, e-commerce, and digital payments, generating valuable data for AI training in sentiment analysis and recommendation systems. The rapid expansion of e-commerce in Bangladesh also creates streams of behavioral data that reflect user preferences and regional trends, essential for AI-powered customer insights and personalization.
Bangladesh's agrarian economy contributes about 13% to GDP and employs nearly 40% of the workforce, generating valuable data on crop patterns, soil quality, and weather. This data is crucial for AI applications in precision agriculture and predictive modeling. The healthcare sector offers rich data on patient demographics, disease prevalence, and treatment patterns, particularly valuable for AI in public health and predictive diagnostics. Anonymized and standardized health data aligns with global data privacy standards, making it attractive for international healthcare AI companies. Additionally, with mobile financial service providers like bKash leading mobile payment adoption, Bangladesh generates a steady stream of transactional and behavioral data ideal for AI applications in financial inclusion, fraud detection, and risk assessment.
While Bangladesh has significant potential, several challenges must be addressed. The country's relatively open regulatory framework may attract companies seeking diverse datasets, but stronger data privacy laws are needed to meet international standards. The digital infrastructure is developing but lacks the sophistication found in neighboring countries like India. Government incentives and foreign partnerships could bridge this gap. Furthermore, Bangladesh offers a competitive advantage in data processing labor and digital services, making it an attractive outsourcing destination for data-related tasks.
To develop a robust data-driven ecosystem, Bangladesh needs a foundation of policies and infrastructure for effective data collection and management. Establishing clear data governance policies is essential to align with global data protection standards, ensuring that individual rights are protected while increasing trust among international partners. Developing local data hubs and innovation labs will be crucial for organizing, categorizing, and securing data, streamlining data export and usage. Public-private partnerships can foster skills development, creating a thriving job market in data processing, storage, and analytics.
To make data a valuable export commodity, it is crucial to prepare it to meet international requirements. This involves processing data through cleaning, labeling, and structuring to make raw data accessible and usable for specific industries. By investing in processes that align with standards from organizations such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), Bangladesh can build its reputation as a reliable data provider. Organizing data into “data packages” tailored to meet the needs of particular industries can attract global buyers who require curated, sector-specific information.
