GeoStrategy Initiative Analysis and Events

State of the Order: Assessing December 2020

The State of the Order breaks down the month’s most important events impacting the democratic world order.

Mapping green innovation ecosystems: Evaluating the success factors for the world’s leading greentech-innovation centers

By Peter Engelke, Margaret Jackson, Randolph Bell

Enabling current and future generations to mitigate climate change requires the urgent creation and scaling up of technologies that minimize and reverse the impact of human activities on the environment.

Smart partnerships amid great power competition

By Mathew Burrows, Julian Mueller-Kaler

The report captures key takeaways from various roundtable conversations, identifies the challenges and opportunities that different regions of the world face when dealing with emerging technologies, and evaluates China’s role as a global citizen. In times of economic decoupling and rising geopolitical bipolarity, it highlights opportunities for smart partnerships, describes how data and AI applications can be harnessed for good, and develops scenarios on where an AI-powered world might be headed.

Cooperation in a bipolar world

By Mathew Burrows, Julian Mueller-Kaler

Taking into account China’s growing influence around the world, discussions often alluded to an uncomfortable truth: In order to avoid catastrophe, even rivals must cooperate, which is why participants, particularly at roundtables in Europe, were keen to identify a number of areas that could lower the tensions and help build trust among antagonistic stakeholders.

An unequal world

By Mathew Burrows, Julian Mueller-Kaler

An unequal world is probably the base case, exacerbated by the social and economic effects of the ongoing pandemic. In this future, emerging technologies have deepened divisions and inequalities instead of leveling the playing field domestically and internationally.

India’s quest for digital sovereignty

By Mathew Burrows, Julian Mueller-Kaler

Similar to Europe’s “Third Way Approach,” and in order to navigate between the US and the Chinese models, India is also trying to develop a concept of digital sovereignty, all the while mitigating negative externalities of great power competition.

Worries about AI externalities

By Mathew Burrows, Julian Mueller-Kaler

There is no doubt that emerging technologies have gained significant importance over the last couple of years, but a sense of caution is required when it comes to the hype surrounding AI. Technologies have so far remained a tool and their applications won’t be solving all of humanity’s problems anytime soon.

Technology for good

By Mathew Burrows, Julian Mueller-Kaler

By focusing on healthcare, food security and agriculture, education, or infrastructure, global AI competition could be given a very different spin, mitigating the rivalry aspect of politics. How modern technologies should be centered on serving those broader global interests was at the core of the discussions in the roundtable focused on Africa.

A bipolar world

By Mathew Burrows, Julian Mueller-Kaler

A Bipolar World is where Sino-US competition edges out any possibility of cooperation—not just on data and AI. Countries in Europe and Asia are forced to choose between Washington and Beijing while desperately trying to develop their own digital sovereignty.