Pricewaterhouse Coopers

The focus of this report is on harnessing AI systems today, and as they evolve, to create maximum positive impact on urgent environmental challenges. It suggests ways in which AI can help transform traditional sectors and systems to address climate change, deliver food and water security, protect biodiversity and bolster human well-being. This concern is tightly linked with the emerging question of how to ensure that AI does not become harmful to human well-being.

This report analyses the long-term evolution of the economic evolution in terms of GDP for 32 of the world's largest economies in the world, accounting for 85% of today's global GDP. It analyses the different challenges policymakers will have to cope with in those countries as well as the new business opportunities created by this shift in the global economic order.

Welcome to the World in 2050 report, which sets out long-term global GDP growth projections. The analysis covers 32 of the largest economies in the world, accounting for around 84% of total global GDP.
This study updates PwC’s earlier analysis of global economic power shifts and forms part of its wider megatrends research programme.

By 2033, the global geopolitical scene will have radically changed. Both economically and politically, western powers will have lost their prominence in favour of new regional blocks. These rising poles will compete among themselves and are likely to protect their own markets; after a while they will become sources of direct investment.

The world economy is projected to grow at an average rate of just over 3% per annum from 2011 to 2050, doubling in size by 2032 and nearly doubling again by 2050. China is projected to overtake the US as the largest economy by 2017 in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms and by 2027 in market exchange rate terms. India should become the third ‘global economic giant’ by 2050, a long way ahead of Brazil, which we expect to move up to 4th place ahead of Japan. Russia could overtake Germany to become the largest European economy before 2020 in PPP terms and by around 2035 at market exchange rates. Emerging economies such as Mexico and Indonesia could be larger than the UK and France by 2050, and Turkey larger than Italy. Outside the G20, Vietnam, Malaysia and Nigeria all have strong long-term growth potential, while Poland should comfortably outpace the large Western European economies for the next couple of decades. This report updates our long-term global economic growth projections, which were last published in January 2011. These are based on a PwC model that takes account of projected trends in demographics, capital investment, education levels and technological progress.