Emer­son John-Charles

As the world cel­e­brates the un­prece­dent­ed pro­duc­tiv­i­ty gains of fron­tier tech­nolo­gies such as ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and ro­bot­ics, the ques­tion for T&T is stark: are we tru­ly po­si­tioned to har­ness the wealth and op­por­tu­ni­ties these trans­for­ma­tive tech­nolo­gies cre­ate? The un­com­fort­able an­swer is, “not re­al­ly.”

The re­al­i­ty check

Our per­for­mance on glob­al tech­nol­o­gy and in­no­va­tion bench­marks tells a sto­ry of de­cline. On the Glob­al In­no­va­tion In­dex, T&T ranked 108th in 2024, a steep fall from our peak at 68th in 2008. Har­vard’s At­las of Eco­nom­ic Com­plex­i­ty shows that from 1995 to 2025, the tech­no­log­i­cal and in­no­v­a­tive con­tent of our ex­ports has stag­nat­ed, show­ing no re­al progress in 30 years. Even more con­cern­ing, on UNC­TAD’s Fron­tier Tech­nol­o­gy Readi­ness In­dex, our po­si­tion slipped to 86th in 2025, down from 75th in 2021.

The UNC­TAD Tech­nol­o­gy and In­no­va­tion Re­port 2025, along with its Fron­tier Tech­nol­o­gy Readi­ness In­dex, sheds light on the re­al­i­ties be­hind the num­bers and helps us iden­ti­fy the levers we must pull to over­come the bar­ri­ers hold­ing us back.

The In­dex is built on five sub-in­dices of ICT, hu­man skills, in­dus­tri­al ca­pac­i­ty, fi­nance, and R&D, each bench­marked against oth­er coun­tries.

For T&T, our ICT and hu­man skills are rea­son­ably ad­e­quate. How­ev­er, our in­dus­tri­al ca­pac­i­ty and re­search and de­vel­op­ment (R&D) re­main crit­i­cal weak­ness­es, ranked 122nd and 130th in the world, re­spec­tive­ly.

These poor scores should come as no sur­prise. Stake­hold­ers have long voiced con­cerns about the lack of in­vest­ment and pri­ori­ti­sa­tion in these ar­eas. Our R&D ex­pen­di­ture re­mains be­low 0.5 per cent of GDP, and res­i­dents file on av­er­age on­ly one patent per year at the In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Of­fice. In ad­di­tion, much of the tech­nol­o­gy with­in our man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor is out­dat­ed, with equip­ment well past its prime.

Pock­ets of promise

De­spite these dis­ad­van­tages, there are bright spots worth high­light­ing. Ramps Lo­gis­tics’ award-win­ning AI so­lu­tion, MAWI, is trans­form­ing cus­toms bro­ker­age and is al­ready be­ing ex­port­ed, gen­er­at­ing much need­ed for­eign ex­change.

Sim­i­lar­ly, Carib Brew­ery’s $200 mil­lion smart man­u­fac­tur­ing Line 7 (the largest in­vest­ment in the his­to­ry of the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny) sig­nals a bold step to­ward in­dus­tri­al mod­erni­sa­tion.

Both ex­am­ples re­flect an ac­knowl­edg­ment of the glob­al op­por­tu­ni­ty. Emerg­ing fron­tier tech­nolo­gies cre­at­ed US$2.5 tril­lion in rev­enue in 2023 alone, a fig­ure pro­ject­ed to rise six-fold to US$16.4 tril­lion by 2033. Cap­tur­ing even a frac­tion of this wealth could help di­ver­si­fy our econ­o­my and re­duce de­pen­dence on the shrink­ing oil and gas sec­tor. Ad­dress­ing our two weak ar­eas of R&D and in­dus­tri­al ca­pac­i­ty must there­fore be el­e­vat­ed to a na­tion­al strate­gic pri­or­i­ty.

Clos­ing the gaps

The UNC­TAD Tech­nol­o­gy and In­no­va­tion Re­port pro­vides a clear roadmap. To strength­en our R&D, we must for­ti­fy re­search in­sti­tu­tions and in­cen­tivise pri­vate sec­tor in­vest­ment in R&D. Our uni­ver­si­ties should es­tab­lish AI in­no­va­tion cen­tres with a fo­cus on patent gen­er­a­tion, com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion, and sup­port for lo­cal re­searchers and in­ven­tors.

A strong gov­er­nance frame­work is equal­ly crit­i­cal. This means re­vis­it­ing and up­dat­ing the Na­tion­al In­no­va­tion Pol­i­cy, cre­at­ing a Na­tion­al In­no­va­tion Agency to co­or­di­nate the in­no­va­tion ecosys­tem, and es­tab­lish­ing a high-lev­el par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee on sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, and in­no­va­tion.

On in­dus­tri­al ca­pac­i­ty, the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) has al­ready cham­pi­oned in­vest­ment in In­dus­try 4.0, a dri­ve that de­serves ac­tive gov­ern­ment sup­port. Com­pa­nies must al­so be en­cour­aged and trained to im­ple­ment the na­tion­al in­no­va­tion stan­dard (TTS/ISO 56001), thus boost­ing their in­no­v­a­tive ca­pa­bil­i­ties and align­ing them with glob­al best prac­tices.

Cru­cial­ly, SMEs re­quire tar­get­ed sup­port, which in­cludes train­ing and in­cen­tives to adopt and lever­age fron­tier tech­nol­o­gy tools. Once again, I must un­der­score the ur­gency of re­in­stat­ing an up­dat­ed Na­tion­al In­no­va­tion Pol­i­cy as the an­chor for these re­forms.

It is al­so note­wor­thy that our Caribbean neigh­bours are mak­ing strides: Bar­ba­dos has seen strong progress in R&D through in­creased sci­en­tif­ic pub­li­ca­tions and patents in fron­tier tech­nolo­gies, while Ba­hamas has strength­ened its in­dus­tri­al ca­pac­i­ty by boost­ing high-tech man­u­fac­tur­ing ex­ports.

T&T has im­mense po­ten­tial to join this wave of im­prove­ment and share in the vast rev­enues be­ing gen­er­at­ed by AI and oth­er fron­tier tech­nolo­gies.

Our fu­ture de­pends on clos­ing these gaps and strate­gi­cal­ly in­vest­ing in new com­pe­ten­cies. Break­ing away from the sta­tus quo will not be easy, but with an eco­nom­ic cri­sis loom­ing, fail­ing to cre­ate an en­vi­ron­ment that al­lows our firms to ac­cess this new fron­tier of wealth would be a cost­ly mis­take.