9 Dec 2025
At the global boardroom organised by the financial times I got the opportunity to learn from decision makers & understand their approach to deal with a world that is facing constant disruption and where economic policy, geopolitics, technology, energy, and leadership are increasingly intertwined.
FT brought in a diverse set of speakers: Christine Lagarde — President, European Central Bank,Akash Palkhiwala —COO, Qualcomm,Eimear Bonner — CFO, Chevron Corporation,Janet Henry — Global Chief Economist, HSBC, Izabella Teixeira — Member, International Advisory Board & Former Brazilian Environment Minister ,Antti Häkkänen — Minister of Defence, Finland , Oana-Silvia Țoiu — Minister of Foreign Affairs, Romania, Lesley O’Connor — Founder & Executive Chair, SupergridEurope among others to speak on themes spanning economics, geopolitics, technology, energy, and governance.
Today in this interconnected world the decisions that one nation takes affects and influences the decisions of others. Politics has become more globalised now. Leaders in both business and government are expected to make choices that can position them to win in the long term.
The USA is the prime mover in geopolitics at present. Every action it takes has a disproportionate effect on the world. The reshoring effort that is currently underway has broad support from both democrats and republicans. President Trump may be the current face of the trade war but the seeds were sown with the chips and science act during the Biden administration and its execution by then commerce minister Gina Raimondo. Similarly the infrastructure act especially the sections that outlined the energy policy were handled well by then energy secretary Jennifer Granholm. The Trump administration seems to be continuing that work through new initiatives like the genesis mission.
Now a consequence of this has been that other nations especially in Asia that were previously benefiting from the USA offshoring its manufacturing and hiring immigrants suddenly have found themselves in a situation where they have to carry the load of doing actual product development. Now,at least in the short term , they can't rely on validation from the USA and simply adapt products to their own local market conditions.
Of course none of this is actually welcome. Because new development carries with it a risk of failure and failure could end political and business careers. But it will be interesting to see how this story unfolds.
The speakers raised the issue of economic systems becoming too transactional and cooperation being limited to short term gains. And they were right from their vantage point. But local politics in the USA is demanding more accountability from their leaders as the sentiment among people is strong that the USA sabotaged its industries by blindly following the ideals of globalization. Especially in their deals with entities like the communist Chinese party who were not and are not willing to play by the rules of international trade. Yes USA needs allies but they need to meet them in the middle. They don't want to be taken advantage of.
So where does that leave diplomacy? My view is that diplomacy is changing. The old ways of ambassadors conveying the intentions of their leaders to enter into MOUs or trade agreements is becoming largely irrelevant. Now it's more about people to people relations. Nearly 50M people with German ancestry live in the USA today. That's comparable to the entire population of Germany at 84 M. Similarly you'll find more people of Irish and Scottish ancestry in the USA than in their homeland. 20M Africans. Millions of Indians and Chinese. They are the new face of diplomacy.
Diplomacy is being carried out unofficially through people,trade,non profit organisations.
The role of diaspora in building diplomatic bridges was also discussed at the Foundation for critical choices for India conference. I became more convinced that traditional practice of diplomacy is changing fast
Manufacturing and supply chains were very pressing topics in the discussion. A 100 years ago and much before during the industrial revolution the focus was on building tools that relied on a few common materials. Glass,steel and early plastics. Yes there were dependencies on oil,rubber but those were manageable. But in the last 50 years or so the material requirements have grown more complex. The semiconductor industry today is built upon 100s of different niche chemical compounds along with materials that span the entire periodic table.
Diffusion of technology is always a big challange in manufacturing. I was present at the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and industry where the speakers brainstormed on how best to position their state as a manufacturing hub. This issue of balancing national and regional interest is faced by every nation. Even in USA not every state is equally capable in manufacturing . The story is simillar in Canada and EU. How could the policy makers find a solution to this problem where local priorities could force their hand?
The difficulty lies in the fact that not every nation has access to all of these materials in sufficient quantities. This imbalance is one of the major factors of the trade wars. If a material is imp and a nation has an advantage in deposits or in tech to extract those deposits they will exploit it as they already are.
Now there are different opinions on how to manage this challenge. Through diplomacy? Trade agreements? Or by retooling,discovery and capacity building that decreases reliance on these materials? All of these approaches have tradeoffs and to some extent all three approaches are being explored. Countries that rely on resource exploitation may have an upper hand in the short term but it's no guarantee of a sustained advantage that can help them to lead.
Asia has traditionally exported its labour in exchange for money or technology. Well the USA is now prioritising labour from the Americas. Mexico,Argentina,Peru,Chile and Africa. How will Asia compete if skilled laborers can be found elsewhere? Especially in the information age the cost of education has plummeted?
Geopolitically, the USA by importing labor commands exceptional power. Not only does it get access to talent it gains leverage over nations exporting them. The people in high positions in the USA influence key decisions in their home country. Even if Asia could outcompete Africa and LATAM in the coming decades it will still be several steps behind the USA if it continues to follow this tactic.
Energy was another important topic of discussion.The last few years have shown how energy can become a geopolitical tool. Nations are rushing to renewable energy and while it's encouraging to see how far RE has really come from its humble beginnings there are still significant challenges ahead. It's one thing to power one's home with RE and quite another to power industries renewably. Industrial cross collaboration will be key. The transition from oil and gas to renewable fuels needs to be managed carefully.
There may be enough Li and Neodymium for batteries and motors but is it everywhere? Can all nations mine, extract and build tech with it? If not , the resources that do power RE will become tools of geopolitical manipulation. Nations need to understand this and develop their research policy that addresses the challenges that are unique to them.
Yet these challenges just scratch the surface. More efforts will be needed to modernize the grid. What will be the dominant mode of transmission HVDC,HVAC or will we just stick with what we do now? There are more questions around what new methods can be devised to generate and transmit power but those are unlikely to be asked because the pressure to deliver a quick result is so strong that it leaves little room for exploration. There's no Moore's law for energy. No matter what the solution it needs to work on scale. The bigger the better.
Decisions must be taken by those who deeply understand the tradeoffs and are not simply acting based on advice of other experts.
Like in almost all conferences I attended this year AI elicited some strong responses. Will AI take up jobs or create new ones? Do we have enough energy to power AI data centers? What about AI sovereignty? Nations can't even manufacture their own chips. Will AI make them even more dependent on foreign powers?
Just days before the global boardroom I had the privilege of attending a webinar by alliance University on post moore architectures. Ideas like Photonics ,Quantum technologies and even pushing the node to smaller feature sizes for as long as possible were discussed. However the geopolitical aspects of it remained untouched. Only a handful of nations are able to develop chips. No matter what direction the technological leaders take most nations will never be able to develop their own chips. So what do they do?
At this point some tough questions need to be asked. Do we really need the absolute cutting edge to support the most critical techs or can we get away with older more approachable solutions? For industrial automation even something as ancient as a tape drive could do the job. With careful designs and tweaks it could help build capacity to support issues in manufacturing, and defense without ever building a single transistor. New cheap ways of computing can be built. It is possible but risky.
Corporate leaders need to assess this risk and come up with solutions that can position them to win. In the documentary Something ventured filmmakers tell the history and growth of venture capitalism in the United States, showing how early investors backed visionary founders before “venture capital” was even a widely known concept. If the nations want to lead they will need to develop an appetite for risk and look at ideas that could change the future.
The role of media in a democracy can't be understated ,yet as the recent events have shown ,the media has become increasingly corporatised, often explicitly aligning themselves with political parties and presenting their views with an angle. This,while being most regrettable, is not unexpected as the media is hardly independent and relies upon corporate funding and sponsored ads to support itself financially.
The State itself is becoming more and more corporatised. Increasingly political leaders have to act in the interests of powerful financial groups/lobbies that influence policy making. Defense has largely privatised itself. A few nations like to keep a tight control but those are not really strong and can hardly influence matters on the world stage.
The USA has been at the forefront of leading these innovations in politics. Yes some of these ideas can be traced back hundreds of years but the USA executed them perfectly and gained the top position.Today USA is not looked upon favorably by many leaders in the world. Be that as it may it is undeniable that they won and won big.
As president Biden often remarked in his term, it's never a good bet to bet against America. But there is more to America than just forceful policy making. America succeeds because America is a nation of possibilities —president Biden was absolutely right when he chose that word to describe the country. It seeds new technologies. Nurtures new ideas. The rebellious, self reliant , non conformist attitude of its people brings those ideas to life. This has been true for at least 200 years. It is difficult to compete with such a revolutionary sentiment that is so deeply embedded in the hearts of people.
2025 is drawing to a close.Very soon it will be a new year. It will be an opportunity for us to reassess where we are and where we can go and at this time it becomes important for us to ask ourselves how can we find the courage to start something new and embrace the highs and lows of discovery and exploration.
America faced that dilemma too. This is how Emerson responded.
“Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
Thank you for reading and a very happy new year.
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