Digital Transformation of the Economy: Pecularities of Industrialized Regions

Abstract

The concept of Industry 4.0 based on a set of information technologies forms a new economic paradigm and changes production models. These processes allow the most developed territories to create advantages by integrating digital technologies into their own economy. The purpose of the study is to identify the dynamics and features of the digital transformation processes of the economic sphere in the industrially developed regions of the Russian Federation. In the course of the study, the methods of structural, dynamic analysis of the indicators of official statistics of Russian Federal State Statistics Service in the sphere of digital technologies were used. The study showed the leadership of the macro-regions of the European part of Russia in terms of the digitalization of business, a larger use of digital technologies in industrial regions. The advance of the use of basic information technologies is up to 7 %, in the use of global networks – about 4%, automated data exchange – more than 5 %. In industrial regions, special software is used somewhat more often, especially for product lifecycle management, but less often in the field of scientific research. Such advanced digital technologies as geoinformation systems, digital platforms, artificial intelligence, industrial robots are used more often in industrial regions, and the Internet of Things and digital twins are used less often than in the whole of the Russian Federation. There is still a lag in terms of digitalization costs and the share of digital technology specialists in the economy of industrial regions, explained by the specifics of their production structure. The results obtained demonstrate the specifics of industrial regions and can be used in the process of forming the policy of the Russian Federation in the field of digitalization.