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State of the art

The state of the art refers to the highest level of development or the most advanced stage achieved in a particular field, such as technology, science, or art, at any given time. This concept encapsulates the current pinnacle of knowledge, techniques, or practices that represent the best available standards, often serving as a benchmark for innovation and progress.^[1] The phrase originated in technical literature in the early 20th century, with its earliest documented use appearing in 1910 in the engineering manual The Gas Turbine: Progress in the Design and Construction of Turbines Operated by Gases of Combustion by Henry Harrison Suplee, where he stated, "In the present state of the art this is all that can be done."^[2] By the mid-20th century, the term had evolved from its initial engineering context to broader application, with the Oxford English Dictionary tracing "state-of-the-art" as an adjective to 1955 in the Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society.^[3] Its adoption reflected growing emphasis on technological advancement during the industrial era, transitioning from descriptive technical assessments to a marker of cutting-edge achievement across disciplines. In legal contexts, "state of the art" holds significant implications, particularly in patent law where it is synonymous with "prior art"—the body of existing knowledge that determines an invention's novelty and non-obviousness. Under U.S. patent examination guidelines, an invention must represent a step beyond the state of the art to be patentable, with prior art including patents, publications, and public uses predating the filing date. Similarly, in products liability tort law, the "state of the art" defense allows manufacturers to avoid strict liability for design defects if the product conformed to prevailing industry standards and scientific knowledge at the time of manufacture.^[4] This defense, recognized in many jurisdictions, underscores the balance between innovation incentives and accountability, often requiring evidence of compliance with federal regulations or expert consensus.^[5] Beyond law, the term is integral to scientific and technological discourse, frequently invoked in research to denote the latest methodologies or performance benchmarks.^[6] In fields like artificial intelligence and engineering, "state-of-the-art" models or systems—such as those achieving top results on standardized benchmarks—drive competitive progress, with reviews of the state of the art synthesizing current advancements to guide future work. Its ubiquitous use in advertising and marketing further amplifies its cultural resonance, positioning products as exemplars of modernity, though this can sometimes blur distinctions between genuine innovation and hype.^[3] Overall, the state of the art remains a dynamic concept, continually redefined by ongoing discoveries and societal needs.

Conceptual Foundations

Definition

The state of the art refers to the highest level of development achieved to date in a particular field, encompassing the most advanced techniques, designs, capacities, or knowledge for devices, methods, procedures, or physical objects.^[7] It represents the pinnacle of sophistication, effectiveness, and innovation within a given domain at a specific point in time, grounded in verifiable evidence from empirical research, peer-reviewed studies, and practical implementations.^[8] This concept emphasizes objectivity, relying on reproducible data and established benchmarks rather than subjective opinion.^[9] Key attributes of the state of the art include its dynamic evolution, as advancements continually shift the benchmark forward through new discoveries and integrations.^[10] Unlike "best practice," which prescribes standardized, often conservative protocols optimized for reliability and broad applicability, the state of the art focuses on the frontier of what's currently possible, not necessarily what's routinely recommended.^[11] Similarly, it differs from "cutting edge" approaches, which involve higher-risk, experimental innovations that may not yet be fully validated or scalable, whereas the state of the art denotes proven, high-performing standards.^[12] In engineering, for instance, the state of the art in battery technology as of 2025 features solid-state batteries achieving energy densities in the range of 350 to 700 Wh/kg, enabling longer-range electric vehicles and more efficient energy storage.^[13] In medicine, advanced gene-editing tools exemplify this through CRISPR-Cas9 variants like CBE6b and ABE8e, which offer dramatically improved precision and efficiency for therapeutic applications.^[14] These examples illustrate the term's contextual variations: in general usage, it denotes overarching progress across disciplines, while field-specific interpretations adapt it to technological (e.g., measurable performance metrics) or artistic (e.g., innovative expressive techniques) domains.^[15]

Etymology and Early Usage

The phrase "state of the art" derives from the French expression état de l'art, which emerged in the early 19th century within legal and artistic discourse to denote the prevailing standard or current condition of achievement in creative fields. In French terminology, it originally referred to assessments of artistic practices, as seen in Pierre Jean-Baptiste Chaussard's 1806 publication Le Pausanias français. État des Arts du dessin en France, evaluating the development of drawing and painting techniques.^[16] Early English uses of "state of the art" appeared in the late 18th century, primarily in the humanities to describe the current condition of arts and sciences, rather than the modern sense of the highest level of development. For instance, in Charles Burney's 1776 work A General History of Music, From the Earliest Ages to the Present Period, the phrase characterizes the contemporary status of musical composition and performance. Similar applications occurred in discussions of military strategy and navigation, such as in William Robertson's 1777 History of the Discovery and Settlement of America.^[17]^[18] These instances reflect an initial focus on the existing state of intellectual and creative endeavors. A semantic shift toward the modern connotation of cutting-edge advancement occurred in the early 20th century. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the adjective form to 1955, while the noun phrase in its technical sense first appears in 1910 in Henry Harrison Suplee's engineering manual The Gas Turbine, referring to the latest techniques. By the 1930s and 1940s, the phrase increasingly entered technical domains via translations of European patents, where the French état de l'art—used to describe prior knowledge in inventions—was rendered as "state of the art," establishing its role in scientific and industrial contexts.^[17]^[3]

Historical Development

Origins in Literature and Philosophy

The concept of "state of the art" finds its philosophical roots in ancient Greek thought, particularly Aristotle's notion of techne, which denoted a productive skill or craft exercised at its highest level of excellence. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes techne as "a disposition that produces something by way of true reasoning," emphasizing mastery over contingent processes, such as building a house or healing a body, where the practitioner understands the causes and aims for optimal outcomes.^[19] This idea of peak proficiency in arts and skills laid a groundwork for later views of intellectual and creative endeavors advancing toward perfected forms, distinguishing skilled expertise from mere habit or intuition. During the Renaissance, humanism further developed these ideals by promoting an integrated pursuit of knowledge that blended artistic expression with scientific inquiry, aspiring to a perfected understanding of the human and natural worlds. Figures like Leonardo da Vinci exemplified this through his extensive notebooks, which meticulously documented anatomical studies, mechanical inventions, and artistic techniques, embodying the humanist belief in saper vedere—the power of observation to unlock comprehensive insight.^[20] These works represented the era's vision of knowledge as a harmonious advancement, where artistic and scientific progress converged to elevate human potential beyond classical precedents. In the 18th-century Enlightenment, literary efforts to systematize knowledge reinforced notions of capturing the "current state" of intellectual achievement, as seen in Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (1751–1772). This monumental work, co-edited with Jean le Rond d'Alembert, compiled and critically examined contemporary advancements across disciplines, serving as a showcase for Enlightenment thought and a tool for rational social progress.^[21] By cataloging the latest in arts, sciences, and trades, it conceptualized progress as an accumulative, examinable summit of human endeavor, influencing how later generations viewed iterative refinement in knowledge. The Industrial Revolution, emerging in the late 1700s in Britain, intensified this conceptualization of progress as ongoing, iterative improvement in technology and society, shifting from agrarian stasis to mechanized efficiency through innovations like the steam engine and power loom.^[22] Concurrently, early 19th-century French salons—official exhibitions of the Académie des Beaux-Arts—became forums for debating l'état actuel des arts, highlighting tensions between academic traditions and emerging styles amid revolutionary changes. In Romantic literature, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust (Part I, 1808; Part II, 1832) portrayed the protagonist's relentless striving for ultimate knowledge as a noble, if tragic, metaphor for human ambition, encapsulating the era's fascination with transcending limits.^[23] Underlying these developments were conceptual prerequisites like Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's dialectical teleology in Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), which framed knowledge as progressing through contradictions toward an ideal rational unity, where history and intellect evolve purposefully.^[24] This teleological view provided a philosophical basis for seeing advancements in arts and sciences as steps toward an ever-approaching pinnacle of achievement.

Evolution in Scientific and Technical Contexts

The adoption of "state of the art" in scientific and technical contexts began to accelerate in the early 20th century, particularly in engineering fields following World War I. In the 1920s, the phrase described the latest advancements in radio technology, where it denoted cutting-edge developments in transmission and reception systems, antenna theory, and related innovations. This shift marked a transition from literary to empirical applications, emphasizing practical progress in electrical engineering. During World War II, the term gained prominence in military research and development, especially in high-stakes projects like the Manhattan Project. Documents from the era referenced "state-of-the-art" methods in uranium enrichment, highlighting the advanced techniques for isotope separation that were central to atomic bomb development. The 1945 Smyth Report, a declassified overview of the project, explicitly noted the "state of the art" in measurements critical to uranium fission processes, underscoring the phrase's role in documenting technological frontiers under wartime urgency.^[25] In the mid-20th century, "state of the art" became integral to the space race and computing advancements. NASA reports from the 1950s frequently employed the term to describe rocket propulsion technologies, such as the facilities built in 1952 to test high-thrust engines, which provided "state-of-the-art tools" for studying future propulsion systems.^[26] By the 1960s, it was commonplace in computer science discourse; IBM's System/360 mainframe, announced in 1964, was widely hailed as the "state-of-the-art" in compatible computing architectures, enabling scalable data processing across business and scientific applications.^[27] The late 20th and early 21st centuries saw deeper integration of the phrase into international standards and digital innovations. From the 1970s onward, bodies like the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) incorporated "state of the art" to define consensus on best practices, as seen in National Bureau of Standards publications reviewing technical advancements.^[28] In the digital era, it denotes benchmarks in artificial intelligence; for example, OpenAI's GPT-4, released in 2023, outperforms prior large language models and aligns with "state-of-the-art" natural language processing capabilities across benchmarks.^[29] Key events further propelled its usage in technical contexts. The 1984 U.S. Supreme Court case Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council referenced "state of the art" in evaluating pollution control technologies, influencing how regulatory frameworks assess technological progress and encouraging its adoption in engineering compliance discussions.^[30]

Legal Applications

Patent Law

In patent law, the "state of the art" refers to the entirety of knowledge that has been made available to the public before the filing date of a patent application, serving as prior art to assess novelty and inventive step. Under United States law, 35 U.S.C. § 102 defines this as encompassing any invention that was patented, described in a printed publication, in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public prior to the effective filing date. Similarly, Article 54 of the European Patent Convention (EPC) holds that the state of the art comprises everything made available to the public through written or oral descriptions, use, or any other means before the filing date, ensuring that patents are granted only for inventions that represent genuine advances. This prior art includes not only formal publications and patents but also public demonstrations, sales, and oral disclosures, forming the baseline against which an invention's patentability is evaluated. A core principle is the non-obviousness requirement, where the state of the art establishes the scope of existing knowledge, and an invention must demonstrate differences that would not have been obvious to a person skilled in the art. The landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Graham v. John Deere Co. (1966) formalized this by outlining factors for obviousness assessments, including the scope and content of the prior art, the differences between the claimed invention and that prior art, and the level of ordinary skill in the field. Complementing this, the enablement doctrine under 35 U.S.C. § 112 requires that a patent specification provide sufficient detail to enable a skilled artisan to practice the full scope of the claimed invention without undue experimentation, thereby ensuring the invention exceeds the state of the art rather than merely replicating it. The amount of disclosure needed inversely relates to the predictability and advancement in the relevant art at the time of filing. International variations in applying the state of the art stem from differing novelty standards, particularly grace periods for inventor disclosures. The U.S. provides a one-year grace period under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b), allowing certain pre-filing public disclosures by the inventor or others who obtained the information from them to not count as prior art, reflecting a "relative novelty" approach. In contrast, the EPC enforces absolute novelty without a general grace period, though Article 55 offers a limited six-month exception for disclosures due to evident abuse or at recognized international exhibitions. These differences influence global filing strategies; for instance, in the 2010s, European Patent Office (EPO) decisions on biotech patents involving gene sequencing, such as those addressing isolated DNA sequences and their technical effects, emphasized that claims must show a specific, credible utility beyond the state of the art to overcome novelty objections. The state of the art plays a pivotal role in opposition and revocation proceedings, where challengers cite prior art to invalidate granted patents. At the Unified Patent Court (UPC), launched in 2023, early rulings have applied state of the art assessments in infringement and revocation actions, including those involving AI-related patents, often staying proceedings pending parallel EPO oppositions to avoid conflicting outcomes. In the U.S., overlooked prior art frequently leads to invalidations; 2024 Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) statistics show that all challenged claims were invalidated in approximately 70% of inter partes review final written decisions, predominantly under §§ 102 and 103 for anticipation and obviousness based on prior art. Similarly, EPO opposition proceedings in 2024 frequently resulted in full revocation in about one-third of cases, with a further 35-40% leading to amendment, highlighting the rigorous scrutiny of the state of the art in maintaining patent quality.^[31]

Tort Liability

In tort law, particularly within product liability and negligence frameworks, the "state of the art" serves as a critical benchmark for assessing a defendant's due diligence and compliance with prevailing industry knowledge and safety standards at the time of the product's design, manufacture, or distribution. Defendants may invoke this concept to demonstrate that they adhered to the highest attainable levels of scientific, technical, and practical understanding, thereby negating claims of negligence or strict liability. For instance, under the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A, which imposes strict liability on sellers for defective products unreasonably dangerous to users, the state of the art defense allows manufacturers to argue that a product was not defective if it aligned with contemporaneous industry practices and knowledge, shifting the focus from absolute safety to reasonable foreseeability of risks.^[32]^[4] Seminal U.S. cases illustrate this defense's role in establishing foreseeability and liability thresholds. In Borel v. Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. (1973), the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held asbestos manufacturers strictly liable for insulation workers' injuries, emphasizing that evidence of the industry's state of the art—specifically, knowledge of asbestos health risks documented as early as the 1930s—made the dangers foreseeable and required adequate warnings, thereby rejecting claims of unavoidable ignorance. Internationally, the European Union's Product Liability Directive 85/374/EEC (as amended and repealed by Directive 2024/2853) incorporates a "development risks" defense, exempting producers from strict liability if a defect could not have been detected given the state of scientific and technical knowledge existing at the time the product was placed on the market, provided they exercised all due care. This provision, optional for member states but widely adopted, underscores the directive's aim to balance consumer protection with innovation incentives.^[33] Jurisdictional variations highlight differing burdens of proof and evidentiary requirements for invoking the state of the art defense. In California, Brown v. Superior Court (1988) refined this for prescription drugs under § 402A's comment k, which addresses "unavoidably unsafe" products; the state Supreme Court ruled that manufacturers of properly prepared and labeled drugs cannot be held strictly liable if the risks were consistent with the state of the art medical knowledge at the time of distribution, placing the burden on defendants to present expert testimony demonstrating contemporaneous scientific consensus, while plaintiffs must still prove causation and defect. This approach contrasts with jurisdictions rejecting the defense outright for design defects but allows it in failure-to-warn cases, where experts testify to the scope of available knowledge.^[34]^[35] In modern applications, the state of the art defense continues to influence high-stakes industries, including pharmaceuticals and emerging technologies. During the 2020s opioid litigation, defendants in multidistrict cases referenced compliance with then-current clinical trial standards and FDA-approved protocols as evidence of adherence to the pharmaceutical state of the art, though courts often scrutinized whether known addiction risks were adequately disclosed despite regulatory alignment. By 2025, with the EU AI Act's enforcement, this defense gains new relevance in AI-related tort claims; the Act's risk-based obligations for high-risk systems define due care standards, enabling providers to argue non-liability if harms arose from undiscoverable defects under the prevailing state of AI development knowledge, integrated into the updated Product Liability Directive's framework.^[36]^[37]

Applications in Technology and Science

Research and Development

In research and development (R&D), the state of the art serves as a foundational baseline for gap analysis, enabling teams to identify unmet needs, avoid redundant efforts, and prioritize innovations that advance existing knowledge.^[38] This process typically begins with systematic methodologies such as comprehensive literature reviews to synthesize current scholarly contributions, patent searches to uncover protected technologies, and benchmarking against established performance metrics.^[10] Databases like Scopus and Web of Science facilitate citation analysis, allowing researchers to quantify impact through metrics such as h-index or forward citations, which highlight influential works and emerging trends. Practical applications of state-of-the-art assessments span diverse fields, guiding the evaluation of progress through domain-specific benchmarks. In software development, particularly natural language processing, neural machine translation models are gauged by BLEU scores, with 2025 averages exceeding 40 for high-quality English-to-German translations, indicating fluent and precise outputs suitable for real-world deployment.^[39] In artificial intelligence, state-of-the-art large language models achieve over 90% on Massive Multitask Language Understanding (MMLU) benchmarks as of November 2025, guiding R&D toward advanced reasoning and multimodal capabilities.^[40] In materials science, pristine graphene has a theoretical tensile strength of up to 130 GPa, while practical graphene-enhanced composites achieve strengths of 1-5 GPa, surpassing traditional materials like steel (0.4–2 GPa) in specific strength-to-weight ratios and enabling lighter applications in aerospace and composites.^[41] Key tools and processes integrate state-of-the-art evaluations into structured innovation pipelines. The Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) framework, developed by NASA in the mid-1970s and expanded to nine levels by the 1990s, assesses maturity from basic principles (TRL 1) to proven systems in operational environments (TRL 9), ensuring R&D efforts build progressively on validated benchmarks.^[42] Complementary approaches, such as iterative prototyping, involve rapid cycles of design, testing, and refinement to iteratively surpass current state-of-the-art thresholds, often informed by simulation tools and empirical validation. Specific examples illustrate these dynamics in cutting-edge domains. In quantum computing, IBM's 2025 advancements in superconducting qubits, such as on the Heron or later processors, have achieved coherence times of up to approximately 300-400 microseconds, setting records for stability that reduce error rates and enable longer computations toward fault-tolerant systems.^[43] In renewable energy, perovskite solar cells have exceeded 25% efficiency in lab-scale tandem configurations, with records reaching 27% for single-junction variants and 33.1% for silicon-perovskite hybrids as of 2024, with ongoing R&D toward scalable, cost-effective photovoltaics that outperform conventional silicon cells (typically 20–22%).^[44]^[45]

Standards and Innovation Benchmarks

Standards bodies play a pivotal role in defining and certifying the state of the art across technology and science domains. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), through joint efforts, establish benchmarks that incorporate state-of-the-art practices; for instance, ISO 9001:2015 sets requirements for quality management systems that emphasize risk-based thinking, continual improvement, and the adoption of current best practices to ensure organizational efficiency and customer satisfaction.^[46] Similarly, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) develops standards for electronics and communications, including early frameworks for 6G technologies in 2025, which focus on enabling faster wireless connectivity, AI integration, and enhanced cybersecurity to support emerging applications like robotics and non-terrestrial networks.^[47] Benchmarking methods provide quantitative and qualitative metrics to measure advancements against these standards. In computing, floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) serves as a key performance indicator, with exascale systems achieving over 10^18 operations per second; as of June 2025, the El Capitan supercomputer reached 1.742 exaFLOPS on the High Performance Linpack benchmark, marking a significant milestone in high-performance computing capabilities.^[48] For environmental sustainability, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, administered by the U.S. Green Building Council, evaluates building technologies based on energy efficiency, water use, and material innovation, promoting state-of-the-art practices that reduce environmental impact while enhancing occupant health.^[49] These standards and benchmarks have profound implications for innovation, influencing funding and global competitiveness. Funding agencies like the National Science Foundation (NSF) typically expect grant proposals to include literature reviews demonstrating novelty relative to the state of the art, ensuring investments advance scientific frontiers.^[50] Globally, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) assesses technology frontiers in its annual reports, with the 2024 edition highlighting how innovation policies can leverage intellectual property to diversify economies and measure progress in emerging fields.^[51] Annual frameworks like Gartner's Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, updated in 2025, track the maturity of innovations such as AI agents and quantum computing, guiding stakeholders on adoption timelines and risks.^[52] In biotechnology, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) employs breakthrough therapy designations as benchmarks, accelerating development for therapies showing substantial improvement over existing options; an FDA analysis indicates these designations reduce clinical development time by approximately 30% on average.^[53] However, challenges persist in emerging fields, where rapid evolution outpaces standardization, requiring adaptive metrics to validate true advancements.

Broader Implications

Business and Economic Contexts

In business strategy, the concept of state of the art plays a pivotal role in shaping product roadmaps and competitive analysis by enabling companies to assess industry dynamics and identify opportunities for differentiation. Frameworks like Porter's Five Forces integrate state-of-the-art evaluations to analyze threats from new entrants, substitutes, and rivalry, helping firms prioritize innovations that enhance market positioning.^[54] For instance, Tesla has leveraged the 2025 Cybertruck's advanced electric vehicle features, including its futuristic design and rugged technology, to establish leadership in the EV segment amid intensifying competition.^[55] Economically, adopting state-of-the-art practices drives productivity and growth, with innovation in areas like artificial intelligence projected to contribute 0.4-1.3% annual productivity gains in high-exposure economies according to OECD analyses. Such advancements bolster GDP by fostering efficiency and new markets, as evidenced by OECD reports linking technological frontiers to sustained economic expansion across member countries.^[56]^[57] Venture capital flows further underscore this impact, with 2024 global funding reaching approximately $314 billion, of which $100 billion targeted AI and other cutting-edge startups, representing a dominant share directed toward state-of-the-art ventures.^[58] Government policies reinforce state-of-the-art adoption to enhance competitiveness, as seen in the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which allocates $52 billion to advance domestic semiconductor manufacturing and research, explicitly aiming to produce leading-edge chips critical for national security and economic resilience.^[59] Internationally, the World Trade Organization has addressed disputes involving technology transfer, such as the 2018 U.S.-China case (DS549), where measures requiring foreign firms to share advanced technologies were ruled inconsistent with trade rules, highlighting tensions over access to state-of-the-art innovations.^[60] These policies often yield measurable returns, with firms investing in state-of-the-art capabilities achieving cost reductions of 15-20% through AI-driven efficiencies, per McKinsey insights on operational transformations.^[61]

Criticisms and Limitations

The concept of "state of the art" often embeds Eurocentric biases, particularly in global technological standards, where Western perspectives dominate training data and benchmarks for AI models, marginalizing non-Western cultural contexts and reinforcing stereotypes in areas like script generation and worldview representation.^[62] This subjectivity extends to non-Western applications, where local innovations may be undervalued against Euro-American norms, limiting equitable global adoption. Additionally, the rapid pace of technological advancement, historically exemplified by Moore's Law—which observed the doubling of transistors on integrated circuits approximately every two years but has slowed in recent years—leads to swift obsolescence, rendering state-of-the-art solutions irrelevant within 18-24 months in fields like computing and electronics.^[63] Practical limitations of pursuing state-of-the-art technologies include prohibitive costs that exclude small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), particularly in developing economies; for instance, the 2025 IFC-World Bank MSME Finance Gap Report estimates a $5.7 trillion credit gap across 119 emerging markets and developing economies, constraining 40% of formal MSMEs from accessing advanced digital tools and infrastructure.^[64] Ethical concerns further complicate adoption, as dual-use advancements in AI surveillance technologies—such as facial recognition systems—enable both security enhancements and repressive monitoring, raising risks of privacy violations and human rights abuses in authoritarian contexts.^[65] Systemic issues, such as patent thickets in the pharmaceutical sector during the 2020s, create overlapping intellectual property barriers that stifle innovation; AbbVie's Humira, for example, involved 247 patent applications extending exclusivity to 39 years and delaying biosimilars until 2023, while 78% of new pharma patents protect existing drugs rather than novel therapies.^[66] Measurement challenges are pronounced in qualitative fields like design, where assessing state-of-the-art status lacks standardized metrics due to subjective elements such as creativity and user experience, compounded by organizational data immaturity that hinders value demonstration.^[67] Debates in sustainability highlight greenwashing risks, where companies falsely claim state-of-the-art eco-technologies to mislead consumers, as seen in unsubstantiated environmental assertions that undermine genuine progress amid the triple planetary crises of pollution, climate change, and biodiversity loss.^[68] In response, there are growing calls for inclusive metrics within the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework, as outlined in the 2023 SDG Digital Acceleration Agenda, which advocates leveraging digital technologies equitably to address gaps in access and monitoring for underrepresented regions.^[69]

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