Insights

International investing remains profitable by focusing on diversification strategies that go beyond simply buying broad market indexes from multiple countries. While globalization has increased correlation among world markets, research by Robert Korajczyk and colleagues shows that targeting stocks with exposure to country-specific economic factors—distinct from global influences—yields better risk-adjusted returns when paired with U.S. investments. Their study examining 27 countries from 1966 to 2022 demonstrates that portfolios combining U.S. stocks with carefully selected foreign stocks significantly outperform U.S.-only portfolios. This refined approach captures local economic risks and opportunities, maintaining diversification benefits even in a highly interconnected global economy.
Financial services
How International Investing Still Pays
BharatGen launched India’s first multimodal large language model to serve education, healthcare, and agriculture, marking a key step in India’s quest for sovereign AI reflective of its cultural diversity. However, complete AI self-sufficiency is unrealistic, as the U.S. and China dominate global AI investment and infrastructure. Sovereignty in AI requires a hybrid approach: states must maintain agency over data, digital identity, and infrastructure while collaborating internationally. India exemplifies this by leveraging its extensive digital public infrastructure and partnerships to build AI capacity, emphasizing that global AI governance should include diverse voices from the Global South to ensure technology benefits all.
United Arab Emirates | Financial services, Education, ICT
Sovereignty In The Age Of AI
Many African countries hold critical roles in the electric vehicle (EV) supply chain, notably producing key minerals like cobalt. To capitalize on the global green transition and demand for critical minerals, African governments should adopt proactive industrial policies—similar to China's approach—to build local value addition and economic clusters. Currently, most minerals are exported raw, with minimal local processing, resulting in lost economic benefits. Countries like Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo are initiating special economic zones to integrate mineral extraction, processing, and manufacturing within the continent, aiming to retain more value and stimulate broader economic development through technology transfer and industrial diversification.
Benin, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda | Financial services, Education
Electric vehicles and industrial policy could transform African economies
The European Commission is reforming the EU’s Better Regulation policy to shorten policymaking time in response to identified inefficiencies. While aimed at faster decision-making, reforms risk undermining democratic legitimacy by reducing stakeholder and public participation. Analysis of 288 public comments reveals mixed stakeholder support: business groups tend to favor reforms, whereas public-interest organizations, NGOs, and citizens are more critical. Reducing opportunities for public involvement could weaken the procedural legitimacy of EU policymaking, potentially diminishing the Commission's influence. Careful balance is needed to maintain effective, evidence-based policymaking alongside faster processes.
Latin America
Will reforms to the Better Regulation policy damage the EU’s legitimacy?
China has rapidly expanded its renewable energy capacity to about 1,840 GW, aiming to nearly double this by 2035 with 3,600 GW. To support this, the government introduced a new pricing mechanism based on contract-for-difference (CfD) models, ensuring price guarantees for a portion (40-80%) of renewable electricity generation, providing more income stability than previous systems. However, this partial coverage exposes generators to market fluctuations and income variability. This shift aligns with China's broader move toward capacity payments, offering fixed annual payments tied to generation capacity for various energy types including coal, gas, and storage. Despite these mechanisms, regional disparities exist, and some solar projects face profitability challenges, raising concerns about the sustainability of long-term investment and expansion.
Financial services
China’s new renewables pricing mechanism may not give generators the stability they need
The US Department of Defense (DoD) and AI firm Anthropic are in a public dispute over the military use of Anthropic’s AI model Claude. Anthropic restricts use in mass surveillance of US citizens and fully autonomous weapons, citing responsible AI principles. The DoD, led by Secretary Pete Hegseth, demands removal of these ethical limits, invoking potential use of the 1950 Defense Production Act to seize technology rights if compliance is not met. Competitors like Palantir, Google, OpenAI, and xAI have accepted broader military uses under “any lawful use” standards. Anthropic recently relaxed its risk mitigation commitments, reflecting tensions between ethical AI development and military demand amid geopolitical uncertainty.
Anthropic v the US military: what this public feud says about the use of AI in warfare
Post-2008 financial reforms in the UK enhanced the stability of major banks like HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, and NatWest by increasing capital and liquidity requirements, reducing risk-taking, and lowering funding costs. However, these regulations also entrenched the dominance of these large banks by raising barriers to entry for smaller competitors, limiting competition and innovation. Consumers face narrowing choices, similar rates, and reduced in-person services, especially outside cities. While the system is safer, the trade-off is reduced market diversity and competition. Future policy should focus on boosting efficiency and competition rather than easing conditions for dominant banks.
Financial services
How post‑2008 financial reforms quietly strengthened Britain’s banking giants
Sweden, an EU member for 30 years, has retained its own currency, the krona, largely due to a 2003 referendum where 56% rejected the euro amidst memories of a 1990s financial crisis and valuing monetary independence. The country’s economic pragmatism and strong growth outside the eurozone have reinforced skepticism about joining the euro. However, rising geopolitical tensions and Sweden’s 2024 NATO accession are prompting renewed debate, with some political parties considering euro adoption to enhance influence and security. Formal euro adoption would require meeting EU criteria and likely another referendum.
Sweden | Financial services
Could global tensions finally see Sweden warming towards the euro?
US defense policy under the Trump administration reveals deep contradictions rooted in how the United States addresses its declining global dominance. Three competing approaches define this struggle: opportunistic military use focused on short-term goals and minimal entanglements; isolationism advocating retreat from international alliances; and selective hegemony aiming to maintain American power through focused military investment in key regions. Recent strategy documents emphasize regaining dominance in the Western Hemisphere but lack clarity on broader alliance commitments, particularly toward Europe. These contradictions pose challenges and opportunities for Europe, which should not assume NATO will remain intact under continued US unpredictability.
Latin America
US Defence Policy: Between Isolationism and the Pursuit of Dominance
Telecommunications companies play a crucial role in the digital economy but have captured only a small share of its value. The rise of artificial intelligence and geopolitical shifts are reshaping where data, computing, and trust reside, altering telcos' importance in the AI ecosystem. Telcos can pursue three strategic pathways—modern telco, AI techco, and national sovereign champion—to achieve AI leadership. By leveraging AI to modernize connectivity services and selectively developing AI capabilities, telcos can enhance value over the next decade. Additionally, in countries with strong sovereign interests, telcos can partner with governments to co-develop national AI infrastructures.
ICT, Education
The Strategic Role of Telecom Providers Across the AI Value Chain
Telecommunications companies play a crucial role in the digital economy but have captured only a small share of its value. Artificial intelligence and geopolitical shifts are redefining telcos' roles in managing data, computing, and trust. Three strategic pathways for telcos to achieve AI leadership include becoming a modern telco focused on AI-driven connectivity modernization, evolving into an AI tech company with specialized capabilities, or acting as a national sovereign champion collaborating with governments to shape AI infrastructure. By adopting these strategies, operators can enhance business value, economic efficiency, and customer experience in the evolving AI landscape.
ICT
The Strategic Role of Telecom Providers Across the AI Value Chain
TrumpRx, a new U.S. drug pricing portal branded under former President Trump, claims to save American patients money by aggregating drug discounts. However, many drugs featured already have cheaper generic or insured alternatives, limiting actual savings. While politically powerful, TrumpRx largely offers performative rather than structural reform in pharmaceutical markets. U.S. drug prices influence global markets, so changes could affect international procurement and pricing negotiations. Lasting affordability depends on systemic reforms like procurement strategies, fostering generics, and adjusting market incentives, rather than portals focused on price rebranding.
With TrumpRx is America reforming its pharmaceutical market, or simply rebranding prices?
Asia, home to nearly 4.8 billion people and major economies, faces the challenge of doubling energy demand by 2050 while reducing emissions and achieving net zero. Despite rapid growth in renewables, fossil fuels still dominate the energy mix, and nearly half of global greenhouse gases originate from the region. More than 350 million Asians lack reliable electricity, necessitating a just, inclusive transition that balances development, affordability, and energy security. Energy Asia 2025 emphasized the need for region-specific strategies, cross-border collaboration, increased investment, innovation, and workforce development. Key outcomes included leadership alignment on priorities, multiple partnership agreements, and the launch of an Energy Transition Academy to support low-carbon skills. Coordinated, pragmatic actions will determine the success of Asia's diverse energy transition pathways.
Malaysia
Faster, coordinated action needed to deliver Asia’s energy transition: Energy Asia
The Global Findex Database 2025 provides updated data on financial inclusion and the use of financial services worldwide, based on surveys of 148,000 adults in 141 economies. It tracks access to formal and informal financial services for saving, borrowing, payments, and risk management. For the first time, it offers global data on mobile phone ownership, internet use, and digital safety, highlighting disparities in digital and financial service access among women and poor adults. This data is crucial for understanding connectivity and inclusion in the evolving digital economy.
Financial services, ICT
The Global Findex Database 2025: Connectivity and Financial Inclusion in the Digital Economy
Europe's growing reliance on digital services and infrastructure poses significant risks in the event of a prolonged systemic failure, potentially causing cascading crises such as power outages, overwhelmed emergency services, and financial disruption. Despite robust short-term outage management and core network redundancies, the continent's data infrastructure remains fragile, with vulnerabilities including unmonitored subsea cables. The complexity of Europe's digital ecosystem—spanning national telecoms and global tech giants—creates a "resilience gap" that is challenging to close. Coordinated efforts by infrastructure providers, investors, and policymakers are essential to enhance resilience and prevent catastrophic outages.
Africa | Financial services, ICT
The Day Europe’s Data Stops Flowing
The Center for Regulatory Ingenuity (CRI) addresses the stagnation in government responsiveness to complex modern challenges by fostering a new, transpartisan vision of effective governance. It creates high-trust environments to develop innovative ideas and builds a supportive network for policymakers to implement solutions at scale. CRI’s initial focus is climate policy, aiming to modernize outdated environmental laws and improve democratic participation and government capacity to manage the economic transition to clean technologies. By integrating regulatory and non-regulatory approaches, CRI seeks to deliver near-term benefits and momentum for national reforms, restoring public trust in government.
Center for Regulatory Ingenuity
Human societies face the fundamental challenge of encouraging individuals to act for the collective good rather than self-interest, essential for sustaining communities and resources. The common solution is to create rules and appoint guardians to enforce them, but this raises the problem of ensuring those enforcers themselves remain honest and accountable. This paradox, identified since ancient times, shows that institutions rely on cooperative members to function yet must also guard against corruption within their ranks. Cooperation, pervasive in nature, is explained by mechanisms like kinship, reciprocity, and reputation, which help sustain collective behavior despite individual incentives to defect.
Guarding the guardians
The AI boom builds on a 1970s economic shift that redefined trade by including services alongside goods, sparking the rise of a global service economy. This transformation enabled management to focus on standardized performance metrics, facilitating widespread privatization and reshaping sectors like healthcare and transport. AI today functions as "services on steroids," leveraging universal models and mass data strategies largely controlled by private corporations, driving high valuations but raising questions about who truly benefits. Like the service economy, AI's expansion consolidates wealth and power among few, intensifying global inequalities and sovereignty concerns, highlighting the need to view AI not just as technology but as a political and economic project.
Financial services, Education
How the AI boom was enabled by a 1970s economic revolution
Port Talbot's steelworks, central to the town's identity for over a century, is transitioning from coal-fired blast furnaces to an electric arc furnace, reducing carbon emissions by about 90%. This shift saves some jobs but leads to significant local job losses and impacts community identity, mental health, and economic stability. While pollution and noise have decreased, and new small businesses have emerged, the town faces medium-term uncertainty. Ecologically, the industrial and natural environment will slowly adjust rather than instantly transform. Globally, emissions may be indirectly exported, as blast furnaces are being constructed in India, complicating the net environmental benefit.
The unintended consequences of decarbonising steelworks
Russia has been intercepting communications from European satellites using two secretive "inspector" satellites, Luch/Olymp 1 and 2, launched in 2014 and 2023. These satellites conduct prolonged proximity and rendezvous operations in geostationary orbit, shadowing European military and commercial satellites to gather signals intelligence (Sigint). By positioning themselves between target satellites and their ground stations, they can intercept both communication signals and operational command links, potentially enabling future disruption or control over European spacecraft. While not directly causing harm now, these actions form part of a broader Russian strategy to gain military advantages and intimidate European support for Ukraine. Increased transparency about these activities is a key step for Europe to counter such space-based threats.
How Russia is intercepting communications from European satellites

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