The Cost of Proof Will Decide the Winners of US–China Decoupling
Every export increasingly carries two products: the good itself and the evidence that makes it admissible. The cost of producing the second may determine...
India Is Building a Third Way for BRICS’ Digital Economy
The 2026 BRICS Summit in New Delhi may be remembered for more than debates over de-dollarization, geopolitical rivalry, and the growing weight of the...
The AI Race May Be Measuring the Wrong Kind of Power
Why ecosystem diffusion may matter as much as frontier supremacy
On 3 September, two announcements offered different views of AI power. OpenAI released GPT-6 Astra,...
Can BRICS Build a Payment Ecosystem Without Becoming a Financial Bloc?
The most consequential expansion of BRICS may happen without a new currency, a dramatic fall in dollar reserves, or another flag being added to...
Southeast Asia Could Become Indispensable to AI Without Becoming More Powerful
Southeast Asia may be winning the race to host the AI economy before it has answered a more uncomfortable question: how much power will...
Agentic Financial Fraud Is Becoming a Test of State Capacity
On 31 July 2026, OpenAI disclosed that it had disrupted a Cambodia-based criminal operation using ChatGPT to support investment, romance, gambling, and law-enforcement impersonation scams. The...
When AI Chatbot Becomes a Political Actor
In Brazil’s 2026 election, a voter may ask a chatbot which candidate best matches her priorities. Under Resolution No. 23.755/2026, which amended Brazil’s standing electoral-propaganda...
Why ASEAN Needs an Energy DPI, Not an Energy Bloc
On 22 July, protesters and police clashed outside the Philippine International Convention Center as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended an ASEAN meeting in Manila....
Beyond Data Centers: How Nickel Could Move Indonesia Up ASEAN’s AI Value Chain
I recently travelled to Sorowako, South Sulawesi, for a corporate social responsibility programme supported by Vale Indonesia. I helped local journalists use artificial intelligence...
Can the Global South Avoid an Enclave AI Economy?
Malaysia’s data center boom offers a revealing piece of arithmetic. Between 2021 and June 2025, the government approved 143 projects. Within that total, 25...