AI Sovereignty and the Global South’s Third Way
When a Regional Crisis Becomes a Global Systems Shock
COVID-19 showed how fragile global interdependence becomes when too much capacity is concentrated in too few...
Beyond the Superpowers: The Rise of a Sovereign AI Axis in Asia
As Amartya Sen once argued, development is ultimately about expanding freedom. In the twenty-first century, that freedom is increasingly mediated by algorithms, data flows,...
The ASEAN AI Dilemma: From Zero-Sum Rivalry to Digital Strategic Autonomy
Across Southeast Asia, competition for AI capital has intensified—and it is no longer subtle. Malaysia has positioned itself as the new hub, offering corporate...
Generative AI for the Long Game: A New Governance Model for the Global South
In the bustling democracies of the Global South, a dangerous pattern has quietly solidified. Leaders, driven by the relentless ticking clock of election cycles,...
Why Digital Democracy Breaks in the Global South: From “Shaming” Dashboards to Harmony Radars
In her seminal work Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics, Nanjala Nyabola diagnosed a fatal flaw of the digital age: we are attempting to impose digital...
When Rituals Break: Why Deepfakes Threaten Democracy Differently in the Global South
In many parts of the Global South, elections are never merely administrative events. They arrive as social rituals—dense moments when hope, fear, memory, and...
From Probability to Possibility: The Algorithm of Aspire in a Fragmenting Global Order
We enter this moment in history with a world order that is no longer merely shifting—it is fragmenting. Institutions that once claimed universality are...
Why Small Language Models Are the Real Path to Digital Sovereignty in the Global South
Beyond the Illusion of Sovereignty
Across the Global South, governments find themselves pulled into the race to build national large language models (LLMs). These efforts...
The Third Space Leader: Beyond Fantasies and Algorithms Part 2
Authors: Tuhu Nugraha and Taufan Teguh Akbari*
Why the Third Space Leader Matters Now
As if these psychological and digital pressures were not complex enough, the broader...
The Third Space Leader: Beyond Fantasies and Algorithms – Part 1
Authors: Tuhu Nugraha and Taufan Teguh Akbari
In many corners of the Global South, the citizens who struggle the most often dream of leaders who live...