State of the World 2023-2025: A Briefing on a Planet in Transformation

Introduction

This report provides a comprehensive, interconnected briefing on the pivotal global shifts that have occurred from the beginning of 2023 to late 2025. Its primary objective is to furnish an Artificial Intelligence (AI) model with a detailed, factual, and contextual understanding of the contemporary world, updating its knowledge base with the systemic trends, feedback loops, and defining events that may fall outside a standard training data window. The analysis emphasizes the interconnections between disparate domains, demonstrating how geopolitical, economic, technological, and societal forces have combined to create a uniquely volatile and transformative period.

The era under review is defined by four intersecting and mutually reinforcing dynamics. First, the theoretical concept of a multipolar world has materialized into a fragmented and competitive geopolitical reality, marked by the realignment of great powers and the fracturing of post-Cold War consensus. Second, the climate crisis has transitioned from a future risk to an immediate and tangible driver of economic loss, human displacement, and geopolitical tension, acting as a systemic stressor across all other domains. Third, the explosive acceleration of artificial intelligence has introduced a powerful general-purpose technology that is simultaneously acting as a catalyst for unprecedented innovation and a source of profound societal and economic disruption. Finally, these macro-level shifts have been mirrored by intense societal pressures, stemming from a persistent cost-of-living crisis, a fundamental transformation of work and social contracts, and a deepening erosion of trust in information and institutions. This report will dissect these trends, not as isolated phenomena, but as components of a complex, dynamic global system in a state of profound flux.

Part I: The Fracturing Global Order

This section establishes the foundational geopolitical and economic landscape, detailing the structural shifts in power, the state of global conflict, and the fragmentation of the post-Cold War economic and financial architecture.

The Multipolar World Materializes

The 2023-2025 period marked the definitive transition from a unipolar or bipolar international system to a more complex, contested, and fragmented geopolitical landscape. This era is best understood not merely through the rise of multiple power centers, but through the concept of "multipolarization"—a dual trend characterized by the diffusion of power to a greater number of state and non-state actors, alongside a sharp increase in polarization both between and within nations. This dynamic has fostered a prevailing pessimistic outlook, where deepening divides between major powers and competition among different models of global order actively undermine cooperative approaches to shared global crises.1

Great Power Competition: US-China

The strategic competition between the United States and China remained the central organizing principle of international relations, though its character evolved significantly. The relationship endured a period of high tension in early 2023, notably after the downing of a suspected Chinese spy balloon by the U.S. military. However, a series of high-level bilateral meetings, including a summit between the two presidents following the APEC conference in late 2023 and subsequent diplomatic engagements in 2024, established a fragile calm and improved channels of communication, aimed at managing the rivalry to prevent it from escalating into open conflict.2

This period of managed competition came to an abrupt end in 2025. The new U.S. administration, viewing the Chinese Communist Party as an existential threat, implemented a series of aggressive "Liberation Day" tariffs. This move dramatically ramped up the trade war, signaling a renewed phase of intense economic confrontation and a strategic pivot toward a more explicit policy of decoupling and containment.2 In this competitive dynamic, China has consistently positioned itself as the primary proponent of a multipolar order and a leading voice for the Global South. While this stance has garnered support among nations wary of U.S. dominance, Western capitals largely view it as a rhetorical strategy to mask its own great-power ambitions and contestation with the United States for global influence.1

Great Power Competition: Russia-West Schism

The relationship between Russia and the West remained deeply adversarial throughout 2023 and 2024, defined by the ongoing war in Ukraine and the comprehensive sanctions regime imposed on Moscow. This schism reinforced a clear geopolitical divide, with Western nations largely united in their opposition to Russian aggression.5

However, 2025 witnessed a dramatic and controversial strategic realignment. The new U.S. administration initiated a policy to normalize relations with Russia, viewing the Ukraine conflict as a primarily European issue that diverted resources from the more critical competition with China. This policy shift was starkly illustrated in February 2025, when the United States voted against a United Nations resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine—a complete reversal of its long-standing position. This was followed by a U.S.-Russia summit in Anchorage, Alaska, in August 2025, aimed at resolving the conflict.5 This American pivot fundamentally altered the dynamics of the Russia-West relationship, creating deep fissures within the Western alliance and providing Moscow with a significant diplomatic opening. Throughout this period, Russia successfully mitigated the impact of Western sanctions by actively cultivating economic and political relationships with a wide array of non-Western powers, including China, India, Iran, and numerous nations across Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America, thereby reinforcing its strategic position in an emergent multipolar world.6

Evolving Alliances: NATO's Expansion and Internal Strains

In direct response to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) underwent its most significant expansion in decades. Finland officially joined the alliance in April 2023, followed by Sweden in March 2024. These accessions effectively consolidated NATO's northern flank, doubling the alliance's border with Russia and fundamentally altering the security landscape of the Baltic Sea region.8

While the alliance demonstrated unity and growth in 2023-2024, it faced profound internal strains in 2025. The new U.S. administration's public skepticism regarding NATO's relevance, coupled with renewed calls for European member states to meet and exceed the 2% of GDP defense spending target, created significant uncertainty about the long-term durability of U.S. security guarantees. Although a full U.S. withdrawal from the alliance remained unlikely, a tangible reduction in American military and financial support was anticipated. This shift has compelled European member states, particularly powers like Germany and France, to accelerate efforts toward greater strategic autonomy and assume a more prominent leadership role in their own continental defense, a process fraught with its own internal political and logistical challenges.9

The Rise of an Expanded BRICS

The 2023-2025 period marked a pivotal moment for the BRICS bloc as it significantly expanded its geopolitical and economic footprint. In January 2024, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) officially joined the original five members, creating an expanded "BRICS-10".10 This expansion was strategically significant, particularly with the inclusion of major energy producers like the UAE and Iran, which enhances the bloc's economic weight and influence over global energy markets.

The expansion is a core component of the bloc's overarching strategy to create a more multipolar world order and reduce global reliance on the U.S. dollar and Western-led financial institutions. It positions BRICS as a more powerful and inclusive platform for the Global South. However, the bloc's effectiveness as a cohesive actor remains constrained by the significant political and economic diversity among its members, including the complex relationship between India and China and the varying degrees of alignment with the West among its members.10

The geopolitical landscape of 2025 did not merely represent a continuation of existing trends but was the result of a fundamental "great re-sorting" of global alignments. Prior to this year, a clear bipolar dynamic was hardening, pitting a U.S.-led Western bloc against a strengthening Russia-China axis, with other nations attempting to navigate this divide. NATO, unified by the war in Ukraine, was expanding and resolute.8 The U.S.-China relationship was one of tense but managed competition.2 The catalyst for the re-sorting was the change in the U.S. administration, which introduced a radical shift in foreign policy priorities.4 This new posture was not a simple return to isolationism but a strategic re-prioritization. It involved a deliberate de-escalation with Russia, which was reframed as a regional European problem, in order to concentrate U.S. resources almost exclusively on confronting China, now viewed as the primary systemic rival.4 Concurrently, this policy applied significant pressure on traditional allies in both Europe and Asia to assume greater responsibility for their own defense burdens.9

This American pivot forced a cascade of second-order effects across the globe. European NATO members, faced with doubts about the U.S. security umbrella, were compelled to accelerate their pursuit of strategic autonomy, potentially leading to the formation of a more independent and coherent European defense pillar.9 Russia, with diplomatic and military pressure from the U.S. reduced, was able to consolidate its position regarding Ukraine and deepen its economic and strategic ties with non-Western partners.6 This shift placed middle powers and regional blocs like ASEAN in a far more precarious balancing act, as the U.S.-China competition became less ideological and more starkly economic and military. Consequently, the year 2025 did not just alter the trajectory of global politics; it triggered a fundamental re-sorting of global alignments. The U.S. move from a "dual containment" posture (targeting both Russia and China) to a "singular confrontation" (with China) while downgrading other commitments fractured the previous Western consensus and accelerated the formation of more distinct, self-reliant, and competitive geopolitical blocs.

A World at War: Conflict and Displacement

The 2023-2025 period was characterized by the eruption of new conflicts and the brutal continuation of existing wars, driving human suffering and displacement to post-World War II highs. These conflicts were not isolated events but were increasingly interconnected, amplified by great power rivalries and the involvement of a complex web of state and non-state actors.

The War in Ukraine: A War of Attrition and Shifting Alliances

By 2024, the war in Ukraine had devolved into a grinding war of attrition. Russian forces, despite suffering immense casualties, made slow, incremental territorial gains in the east, solidifying their occupation of roughly 20% of Ukrainian territory.12 The conflict's trajectory was dramatically altered in early 2025 with the change in U.S. policy. The new administration's public commitment to negotiating a swift end to the war, followed by a halt to major U.S. aid packages, created immense pressure on Kyiv. This move also caused significant friction with European allies, who were left to shoulder the primary burden of supporting Ukraine's defense.12

While a temporary ceasefire framework was discussed in late 2025, a sustainable peace deal remained elusive. Ukraine remained steadfast in its refusal to cede territory, while Russia, holding a military advantage and sensing a fracture in Western resolve, saw little incentive for compromise.12 The human cost of the war continued to mount. By late 2025, estimates pointed to over 40,000 civilian casualties. The conflict had internally displaced 3.7 million people and forced another 6.9 million to become refugees, contributing significantly to the global displacement crisis.12

The Israel-Palestine Conflict: Escalation and Regional Spillover

The conflict that began with the unprecedented Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, escalated into a prolonged and devastating war in the Gaza Strip that continued through 2024 and into 2025.15 Israel's military response, aimed at dismantling Hamas, involved an intense aerial campaign and a ground invasion that led to widespread destruction. A brief, externally mediated ceasefire in January 2025 quickly collapsed, leading to a renewed and intensified Israeli offensive in March 2025. A more durable cessation of hostilities was not achieved until October 2025, following nearly two years of brutal warfare.15

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza reached catastrophic levels, with a total blockade on aid leading to widespread starvation and famine-like conditions being officially confirmed by mid-2025.15 The conflict had significant regional repercussions, igniting a second front with Hezbollah along Israel's northern border with Lebanon, drawing in Houthi rebels in Yemen who attacked shipping in the Red Sea, and prompting attacks on U.S. forces by other Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria. The tensions culminated in unprecedented direct military exchanges between Iran and Israel in April and October of 2024, bringing the region to the brink of a wider war.15

The War in Sudan: A Devastating Humanitarian Catastrophe

The conflict in Sudan, which erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), escalated into one of the world's most severe humanitarian crises.17 Throughout 2024 and 2025, the fighting intensified and spread, particularly in the Darfur region. A turning point occurred in late 2025 when the RSF captured el-Fasher, the army's last major stronghold in Darfur. The city's fall was accompanied by horrifying and credible reports of mass atrocities, including summary executions, targeted ethnic violence, and widespread sexual violence.18

By the end of 2025, the war had resulted in over 40,000 documented deaths—with the true toll likely much higher—and had displaced over 14 million people from their homes. The conflict shattered the country's infrastructure and economy, plunging parts of the nation into famine.18 Despite repeated calls from the UN Security Council for a ceasefire and an end to external interference fueling the conflict, the warring parties remained deadlocked, and the humanitarian catastrophe continued to deepen.17

Other Significant Conflicts

The period also saw the continuation and escalation of other major conflicts. In Myanmar, the civil war that followed the 2021 military coup entered a new phase. In late 2023 and 2024, the military junta suffered a series of major defeats, losing significant territory to a coalition of long-standing ethnic armed organizations and newer resistance forces. This shift in the military balance created a complex geopolitical situation, with neighboring China playing a dual role of sometimes tacitly supporting rebel actions to curb cross-border crime while also providing backing to the weakened junta to prevent a total state collapse on its border.13

Conflict	Key Developments (2023-2025)	Status (Q4 2025)	Estimated Civilian Casualties	Estimated Displaced Persons (IDPs & Refugees)
War in Ukraine	War of attrition with incremental Russian gains. US aid halted in 2025, increasing pressure on Ukraine. Ceasefire talks initiated but no resolution.	Active conflict; stalemate with Russian advantage.	>40,000	10.6 million
Israel-Palestine Conflict	Began with Hamas attack (Oct 2023). Prolonged Israeli invasion of Gaza. Regional spillover involving Hezbollah, Houthis, Iran. Ceasefire reached in Oct 2025.	Ceasefire in effect; extreme humanitarian crisis.	Tens of thousands (Gaza)	~1.9 million (Gaza IDPs)
War in Sudan	Escalation of conflict between SAF and RSF. RSF captures Darfur. Reports of mass atrocities and famine. World's largest displacement crisis.	Active conflict; RSF holds momentum.	>40,000	>14 million

Global Human Displacement at Record Levels

The combined effect of these and other conflicts, alongside persecution and widespread human rights violations, propelled global forced displacement to its highest levels on record. By April 2025, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that more than 122 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide. This staggering figure includes 42.7 million refugees who have crossed international borders, 73.5 million internally displaced people (IDPs) within their own countries, and millions of other asylum seekers and people in need of international protection.14 This unprecedented level of human suffering underscores the profound and cascading consequences of the era's geopolitical instability.

The major conflicts of the 2023-2025 period demonstrate a shift in the nature of modern warfare, moving beyond simple proxy dynamics. In Ukraine, the conflict is not merely a case of Russia versus Ukraine; it is sustained by a massive infusion of Western military technology, financial aid, and intelligence, first from the U.S. and later primarily from Europe.12 Similarly, the war in the Middle East is not just between Israel and Hamas but is amplified by a sophisticated network of Iran-backed non-state actors like Hezbollah and the Houthis, who operate with significant autonomy while aligning with Tehran's strategic goals, countered by robust U.S. support for Israel.15 Even in Sudan, external actors are widely accused of providing the military and financial support that perpetuates the conflict.17

This dynamic can be understood as "Proxy-Plus" warfare. It combines the traditional elements of proxy conflict—where major powers support opposing sides—with several new dimensions. These include the direct provision of cutting-edge capabilities (such as advanced drones, long-range missiles, and real-time satellite intelligence), deep economic integration or isolation (comprehensive sanctions on one side, massive aid packages for the other), and the critical involvement of powerful, quasi-independent non-state actors. Private technology companies, for instance, have become providers of essential battlefield infrastructure, as seen with Starlink in Ukraine.19 This "Proxy-Plus" model makes conflicts more technologically sophisticated, more resilient to attrition, and far more difficult to contain regionally. The multiplication of actors, dependencies, and veto players renders traditional diplomatic resolutions increasingly ineffective, leading to more protracted and destructive wars.

The Strained Global Economy and Fracturing Trade

The global economic landscape of 2023-2025 was defined by persistent headwinds, a broad-based growth slowdown, and a strategic rewiring of international trade and supply chains, driven more by geopolitical considerations than by traditional market forces.

Macroeconomic Outlook: Slowdown and Persistent Inflation

The global economy experienced a significant and synchronized deceleration during this period. Global growth was projected to weaken to just 2.3% in 2025, marking the slowest rate of expansion since the 2008 financial crisis, outside of an outright global recession. This slowdown was not confined to a single region but was a broad-based trend affecting most advanced and emerging economies.20

The primary drivers of this economic malaise were explicitly linked to the fracturing geopolitical order. A sharp increase in trade barriers, particularly the escalation of the U.S.-China trade war, and pervasive policy uncertainty stemming from geopolitical tensions were identified by the World Bank as the main culprits, dampening investment and confidence worldwide.20

Inflation, while moderating from the multi-decade highs of 2022, remained a persistent and complex challenge. In the latter half of 2025, global core inflation was projected to rise again, largely fueled by a tariff-related price spike in the United States. Inflationary trends showed significant divergence across major economies: while the eurozone saw inflation moderate towards its 2% target, the United Kingdom continued to grapple with stubbornly high price levels, and China faced a weak pricing environment bordering on deflation.22

Region/Economy	Real GDP Growth (%) 2025 Forecast	Core Inflation (%) H2 2025 Forecast
World	2.3%	3.4% (annualized rate)
Advanced Economies	1.2%	-
United States	1.4%	3.4% (year-end core PCE)
Euro Area	0.7%	<2.0%
EMDEs	3.8%	-
China	4.5%	Low CPI, PPI deflation
United Kingdom	-	~3.7% (Q3 headline CPI)

Sources: World Bank, J.P. Morgan Global Research 21

Labor Market Dynamics: A Mixed Picture

On the surface, global labor markets appeared resilient, with the unemployment rate holding at a historic low of 5% in 2025. However, this headline figure masked significant underlying weaknesses and disparities.23 The global economic slowdown exerted mounting pressure on job creation, making a durable labor market recovery difficult to achieve. The most acute challenges were concentrated among the world's youth, particularly in low-income countries. Rates for young people "Not in Education, Employment, or Training" (NEET) rose in 2024, contributing to a global jobs gap of over 400 million people and representing a critical barrier to sustainable development.23

The Great Re-Wiring of Supply Chains

The 2023-2025 period witnessed a fundamental and strategic restructuring of global supply chains. The disruptions of the pandemic, compounded by escalating geopolitical risks and the tangible impacts of climate change, forced a decisive move away from the hyper-efficient, cost-optimized globalized models of the previous decades.24 Companies and governments alike prioritized resilience over efficiency, accelerating strategies of "reshoring" (bringing production home), "near-shoring" (moving production to nearby, friendly countries), and vertical integration to secure their supply of critical goods.

Technology, particularly artificial intelligence, became a central enabler of this transformation. AI-powered platforms provided enhanced visibility into complex supply networks, allowing for predictive analytics to anticipate disruptions and optimize logistics in real-time. Initiatives like the World Economic Forum's Global Supply Resilience Initiative (GSRI) exemplified this global push to leverage technology to build more transparent, traceable, and resilient supply chains capable of withstanding the shocks of a more volatile world.24

The economic dynamics of this period reveal a significant shift in the fundamental drivers of the global business cycle. Traditionally, economic forecasts were primarily shaped by monetary policy, consumer demand, and business investment cycles. However, the analysis from institutions like the World Bank for 2025 explicitly attributes the global slowdown not to these cyclical factors, but to "a substantial rise in trade barriers and the pervasive effects of an uncertain global policy environment".21 These barriers and uncertainties are not random market phenomena; they are the direct consequences of deliberate geopolitical decisions, such as the escalation of the U.S.-China trade war, sanctions against Russia, and the broader turn toward strategic competition.1

This establishes a powerful new feedback loop. A geopolitical event, like the imposition of new tariffs, directly impacts economic forecasts by slowing growth and raising inflation.22 These economic impacts, in turn, create domestic political pressures, such as cost-of-living crises, which then influence the next round of geopolitical decisions, often leading to more protectionist policies designed to shield domestic industries. The strategic restructuring of supply chains is a clear economic response to this perceived geopolitical risk.24 This indicates the maturation of a new 'Geopolitical-Economic Cycle' that now runs parallel to, and frequently overrides, the traditional business cycle. Major economic indicators have become more sensitive to geopolitical shocks—such as elections, sanctions, and conflicts—than to traditional monetary policy levers in many instances. Economic policy itself is now wielded as a primary tool of geopolitical strategy, creating a self-reinforcing cycle where political decisions drive economic outcomes, which in turn shape the subsequent political landscape.

The Global Financial Architecture in Flux

The period from 2023 to 2025 was marked by growing challenges to the post-World War II, U.S. dollar-centric financial system. This flux was driven by a combination of geopolitical realignment, which spurred the search for alternatives, and technological innovation, which provided the tools to build them.

De-Dollarization Efforts Gain Momentum

Led by the expanded BRICS bloc, a concerted effort to reduce reliance on the U.S. dollar gained significant momentum. This "de-dollarization" push was motivated by a desire among member nations to enhance their financial independence, insulate their economies from U.S. monetary policy, and reduce their vulnerability to U.S.-led financial sanctions.7

Key strategies included shifting bilateral trade settlements into local currencies, as seen in agreements between China and Russia, and Brazil and China.11 The BRICS' New Development Bank (NDB) also increased its lending in local currencies to help member states avoid the risks associated with dollar-denominated debt.11 However, the U.S. dollar's dominance remained formidable. As of 2024, the dollar still accounted for 59% of global foreign exchange reserves, while the Chinese yuan's share was less than 5%.11 This underscores that the de-dollarization effort is more about creating a multipolar financial system with viable alternatives rather than an imminent replacement of the dollar as the world's primary reserve currency.7

Alternative Payment Systems Emerge

A critical component of the de-dollarization strategy was the development of alternative financial messaging and payment systems to rival the Western-dominated SWIFT network. At their 2024 summit, BRICS members actively discussed the creation of "BRICS Pay," a decentralized payment system designed to facilitate cross-border transactions in their local currencies.10

Simultaneously, China continued to expand its Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS). By January 2025, CIPS had grown to include over 1,400 direct and indirect participants, linking thousands of banks across more than 100 countries and providing a functional, yuan-denominated alternative for international payments.11

Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) Move from Theory to Practice

The exploration of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) accelerated globally, moving from theoretical research to active development and pilot programs. A 2024 survey by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) found that an overwhelming 91% of 93 surveyed central banks were actively exploring a CBDC.26

Major economic blocs made significant progress. In late 2023, the European Central Bank (ECB) officially moved to the "preparation phase" for a digital euro, with a target for potential first issuance around 2029.27 China continued to expand the pilot for its digital yuan (e-CNY), integrating it into public transport and retail networks in major cities. India also launched its Digital Rupee pilot in late 2022, exploring both wholesale and retail use cases.28 Globally, as of 2025, 114 countries, representing 98% of global GDP, were in some stage of CBDC exploration, with four countries having fully launched their digital currencies.29 The primary motivations cited by central banks for this push were the need to improve the efficiency of payment systems, promote financial inclusion, and preserve the role of sovereign money in an increasingly digitalized economy.26

Cryptocurrency Regulation and Institutionalization

The 2023-2025 period marked a turning point for the cryptocurrency and digital asset space, characterized by a global push for comprehensive regulation and a surge in institutional adoption. The European Union set a global benchmark with its Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, which entered into force in June 2023, establishing the first comprehensive legal framework for crypto-asset service providers.31

However, the global regulatory landscape remained fragmented. A 2025 peer review by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) highlighted "significant gaps and inconsistencies" in the implementation of global regulatory standards, creating opportunities for regulatory arbitrage and potential risks to financial stability.32

Perhaps the most significant development was the dramatic increase in institutional adoption, catalyzed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's approval of spot Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) in 2024.34 This move provided a regulated and accessible on-ramp for traditional finance to gain exposure to crypto-assets, legitimizing the asset class and unlocking a wave of institutional capital. This trend was captured in the 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index, which introduced a new sub-index to measure the growing influence of large-scale entities and professional investors in the crypto ecosystem.35

The concurrent developments in global finance—geopolitically driven de-dollarization efforts, state-led CBDC projects, and the regulation of decentralized cryptocurrencies—are not converging into a single, unified future for money. Instead, they are laying the groundwork for what can be described as a "Splinternet of Money." Each of these trends is creating a new set of "rails" for value transfer that operates parallel to, but distinct from, the traditional, post-WWII financial system dominated by the U.S. dollar and the SWIFT network.

The motivations behind these new rails are diverse. For the BRICS nations, the primary driver is achieving geopolitical autonomy and resilience against sanctions.11 For Western central banks, the push for CBDCs is about maintaining monetary sovereignty in the face of private digital currencies and enhancing payment efficiency.26 For the crypto ecosystem, the goal remains a global, permissionless financial system. These divergent goals are leading to the creation of multiple, partially interoperable financial ecosystems, each with its own rules, technologies, and geopolitical alignments. One bloc may remain largely dollar-based and integrated with traditional finance; another may be centered on a yuan/BRICS-led system for commodity trade; and a third could operate on decentralized crypto protocols. The 2023-2025 period, therefore, marks the beginning of the end of a monolithic global financial architecture. The world is moving towards a fragmented financial landscape, creating unprecedented complexity for international trade, sanctions enforcement, and global monetary policy coordination.

Part II: The Great Accelerants: Technology, Climate, and Society

This section analyzes the three most powerful cross-cutting forces that are actively reshaping every other global domain: the AI revolution, the tangible climate crisis, and the geopolitical energy transition.

The AI Revolution: A General-Purpose Catalyst

The period from 2023 to 2025 will be remembered as the moment artificial intelligence transitioned from a specialized technology into a general-purpose catalyst for societal and economic transformation. The explosive growth of generative AI, in particular, created a technological shockwave that permeated nearly every aspect of global life, acting as both a powerful engine of progress and a profound source of disruption.

Accelerating Capabilities and Mainstream Adoption

The pace of AI development during this era was staggering. AI models demonstrated dramatic performance improvements on a new generation of demanding benchmarks designed to test complex reasoning, multimodal understanding, and advanced coding capabilities. Systems made major strides in generating high-quality, realistic video from text prompts and, in some controlled settings, AI agents began to outperform human programmers in complex coding tasks under time constraints.36

This leap in capability was matched by rapid mainstream adoption. AI moved decisively from the research lab into everyday life and business operations. Corporate adoption surged, with a 2024 survey revealing that 78% of organizations were using AI, a significant increase from 55% the previous year. This was fueled by record levels of private investment, particularly in generative AI, which attracted $33.9 billion globally in 2024. The United States remained the clear leader in AI investment, dwarfing its competitors.36

Impact on Labor Markets and Creative Industries

AI's impact on the labor market proved to be a complex story of both displacement and augmentation. Projections from various institutions warned that AI could expose up to 300 million full-time jobs globally to some degree of automation, with roles heavy in administrative, clerical, and data entry tasks being the most vulnerable to displacement.37

However, the real-world impact observed during this period was more nuanced. A growing body of research confirmed that AI was also a powerful productivity booster, often complementing human workers by automating routine tasks and allowing them to focus on higher-value activities. In many cases, AI tools helped to narrow skill gaps by providing support to less experienced workers.36 The World Economic Forum's 2025 "Future of Jobs Report" projected a net growth of 78 million jobs globally by 2030, with strong demand for new roles in AI and data analysis, sustainability, and green technologies, offsetting the decline in traditional roles.39

In the creative industries, AI became a powerful "enabler" rather than a replacement. It was estimated that generative AI could automate up to 26% of tasks in fields like art, design, and media, dramatically speeding up production cycles. This has democratized content creation, allowing more people to produce high-quality work. However, it has also ignited profound ethical and legal challenges concerning intellectual property rights, attribution, and the authenticity of creative work.41

The Information Ecosystem Under Strain

The proliferation of powerful and accessible generative AI tools placed the global information ecosystem under unprecedented strain. The ability to create convincing synthetic media—including text, images, audio, and video—at scale and low cost amplified the threat of misinformation and disinformation. This has led to what some analysts have termed a "crisis of knowing," where the very basis of shared reality and trust in evidence is eroded.43

AI-generated deepfakes, low-quality "slopaganda," and other forms of synthetic media were increasingly deployed in political campaigns, scams, and as tools of information warfare in conflict zones. This trend has not gone unnoticed by global risk assessors; for the second consecutive year, the World Economic Forum's 2025 "Global Risks Report" ranked misinformation and disinformation as one of the top short-term threats facing the world, directly fueled by advances in AI.44

The Global AI Governance Debate

The breathtaking speed of AI advancement triggered an urgent and complex global debate on safety, ethics, and regulation. Governments and international bodies scrambled to establish frameworks to harness AI's benefits while mitigating its risks. A landmark moment came in 2024 when the European Union passed the world's first comprehensive, legally binding regulation on artificial intelligence, the AI Act. This legislation adopts a risk-based approach, imposing strict obligations on "high-risk" AI systems while banning certain applications deemed to pose an "unacceptable risk," such as social scoring.46

In the United States, the regulatory landscape has been more fragmented. The debate has centered on the tension between the need for a consistent national framework and the role of states as "laboratories of democracy." In the absence of comprehensive federal legislation, numerous states, including Colorado and Tennessee, passed their own AI-related laws in 2024 and 2025, addressing issues from deepfakes in elections to the use of AI in hiring and healthcare.47

This regulatory activity is also deeply intertwined with geopolitics. The concept of "AI sovereignty"—a nation's ability to control the key inputs of AI development, including computing power (semiconductors), data, and talent—has become a central pillar of great power competition. This has led to strategic industrial policies and protectionist measures, such as U.S. export controls on advanced chips to China, as nations vie for leadership in this transformative technology.49

Technological Convergence Zones

The true transformative power of AI in this period is most evident where it converges with other exponential technologies, creating capabilities that are far greater than the sum of their parts. These "convergence zones" are the crucibles of 21st-century innovation.

• AI + Robotics: The integration of sophisticated AI, particularly large language models, with physical robotic systems is creating a new generation of intelligent automation. This convergence is enabling robots to understand complex, natural-language instructions, reason about their physical environment, and interact more naturally with humans. This is accelerating progress in both industrial automation and the ambitious development of general-purpose humanoid robots.50 A particularly powerful application is the vision of "closed-loop" autonomous laboratories, where AI designs novel experiments and robotic systems execute them, a paradigm poised to revolutionize the pace of scientific discovery.52
• AI + Biotechnology: AI is fundamentally reshaping the life sciences. In drug discovery, machine learning models are analyzing vast biological datasets to identify promising new drug candidates and optimize the design of clinical trials, drastically reducing timelines and costs.53 The convergence is also accelerating gene-editing research. Tools like CRISPR-GPT have emerged, acting as an "AI copilot" for scientists. These tools help design more effective gene-editing experiments, predict and minimize off-target effects, and make the powerful CRISPR technology more accessible to a broader range of researchers.55
• Quantum + AI: A symbiotic relationship is forming between quantum computing and artificial intelligence. On one hand, AI and machine learning techniques are being used to help design and optimize complex quantum algorithms. On the other, quantum computers hold the long-term promise of dramatically accelerating certain types of AI computations, potentially unlocking new frontiers in machine learning.56 The rate of scientific and patent activity in this combined field is growing faster than in either AI or quantum technology in isolation, indicating a powerful synergistic effect.57

The systemic impact of the AI explosion during 2023-2025 can be understood through a dual role that AI has come to play. On one hand, it functions as a 'Systemic Friction Reducer'. In domains governed by complex but definable processes, AI acts as a universal solvent for inefficiency. In scientific research, it reduces the friction of trial-and-error in drug discovery and gene editing.54 In labor markets, it removes the friction of performing routine, repetitive tasks, thereby boosting productivity.36 In logistics, it dissolves the friction of information gaps in complex supply chains, allowing for better prediction and resilience.24

Simultaneously, however, AI acts as a 'Complexity Amplifier'. In domains characterized by strategic interaction and human perception, AI introduces new layers of chaotic and unpredictable complexity. In the information ecosystem, it exponentially complicates the task of distinguishing truth from fiction, eroding the very basis of public trust.43 In geopolitics, it adds a new, highly complex dimension of competition centered on "AI sovereignty" and the control of foundational technological inputs.49 In the security sphere, it creates complex new threats from autonomous systems and sophisticated, AI-driven cyberattacks. In governance, it generates a fragmented and rapidly evolving global regulatory landscape as governments struggle to keep pace with the technology's advancement.46 The central challenge emerging from this period is therefore not simply managing AI, but managing this fundamental duality: how to maximize the immense benefits of reduced systemic friction while mitigating the profound risks of amplified systemic complexity.

The Climate Crisis as an Immediate Reality

During the 2023-2025 period, the global climate crisis definitively transitioned from a future threat to an immediate, tangible, and cross-cutting driver of global instability. A relentless succession of record-breaking metrics and extreme weather events made the impacts of a warming planet an undeniable reality, with profound consequences for the global economy, human security, and critical infrastructure.

Record-Breaking Metrics: A New Baseline of Extremes

The years 2023 and 2024 shattered global climate records, establishing a new and alarming baseline for the planet's climate system. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirmed that 2023 was the warmest year on record by a clear margin, with the global average near-surface temperature reaching approximately 1.45°C above the pre-industrial (1850-1900) baseline.58

This record was short-lived. Data for 2024 indicated that it was the first full calendar year likely to exceed the critical 1.5°C threshold of the Paris Agreement, with the global mean temperature reaching an estimated 1.55°C above the pre-industrial average.61

This unprecedented surface warming was accompanied by record-breaking values across all other key climate indicators. Atmospheric concentrations of major greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide) reached new highs. Ocean heat content, which measures the energy absorbed by the world's oceans, also set a new record, contributing to more frequent and intense marine heatwaves. Consequently, global mean sea level reached its highest point since satellite measurements began, with the rate of rise in the last decade more than doubling compared to the first decade of the satellite record (1993–2002). In the cryosphere, the world's glaciers suffered the largest loss of ice on record, and Antarctic sea ice extent plummeted to its lowest level ever observed.58

Climate Indicator	2023 Status	2024 Status
Global Avg. Surface Temp. Anomaly	1.45°C (±0.12°C) above pre-industrial (Record High)	~1.55°C (±0.13°C) above pre-industrial (New Record High)
Ocean Heat Content	Record High	New Record High
Global Mean Sea Level	Record High	New Record High
Atmospheric CO2 Concentration	Record High	New Record High
Antarctic Sea Ice Extent	Record Low	Second Lowest on Record

Sources: WMO, NOAA 59

Direct Economic Costs and Insurance Losses

The intensification of extreme weather events translated directly into staggering economic costs. In the United States alone, 2024 saw 27 separate weather and climate disasters that each caused at least $1 billion in damages, with a total cost exceeding $182.7 billion.65 Globally, the trend of rising losses continued. Insured losses from natural catastrophes were projected to reach $145 billion in 2025, continuing a steady 5-7% annual growth trend observed over the past decade.66

These economic impacts extended beyond the direct costs of disaster recovery. Climate-related factors were shown to contribute to broader inflation, adding an estimated 0.3 to 1.2 percentage points to the annual rate. Households faced rising costs through higher energy bills for cooling, increased food prices due to crop damage, and skyrocketing home insurance premiums, particularly in climate-vulnerable regions.67

Systemic Impacts on Food Security and Human Displacement

Climate extremes emerged as a primary driver of acute food insecurity and malnutrition. The 2025 Global Report on Food Crises identified extreme weather as the main driver of acute food insecurity for more than 96 million people in 2024. Droughts, floods, and heatwaves crippled harvests, disrupted supply chains, and led to significant revenue and job losses in agricultural sectors worldwide.68

These climate shocks were also a major catalyst for human displacement. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, climate-related disasters were responsible for 26.4 million new internal displacements in 2023 alone.71 Projections from the World Bank indicate that without significant climate action, regions like North Africa could see up to 19 million internal climate migrants by 2050, highlighting the growing scale of this challenge.72 This climate-induced migration is not a future possibility but a present and accelerating reality, compounding existing socioeconomic vulnerabilities.

Critical Infrastructure Under Strain

The 2023-2025 period starkly revealed the alarming vulnerability of the world's critical infrastructure to climate extremes. Power grids, water treatment facilities, transportation networks, and digital infrastructure were repeatedly tested and disrupted by wildfires, floods, and storms.73 Reports from UN agencies and the WMO consistently highlighted the urgent need for massive investment in infrastructure resilience, particularly in the most vulnerable regions such as Africa and Small Island Developing States (SIDS).74 Organizations like the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) quantified this risk, estimating that Africa's average annual loss from infrastructure damage due to disasters already stands at $12.7 billion—a figure projected to rise significantly with further climate change.75 In response, climate adaptation and resilience have become central pillars of national security strategies, with agencies like the U.S. Department of Defense and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) formally integrating climate resilience into their core strategic planning, recognizing it as a direct threat to operational capability.76

The diverse and far-reaching impacts of climate change during this period demonstrate that it is no longer an isolated environmental issue. A drought in a key agricultural region, for example, does not merely reduce crop yields 70; it triggers a cascade of interconnected effects. It contributes to rising global food prices 69, which in turn increases cost-of-living pressures on urban populations globally 78, potentially fueling social and political instability.79 That same drought can destroy livelihoods, forcing farmers and pastoralists to migrate, creating new pressures on resources in their destination communities and sometimes leading to conflict.80

This reveals the new role of climate change as a 'Systemic Risk Multiplier'. It is a pervasive, ambient force that takes pre-existing global risks—geopolitical, economic, and social—and intensifies them. It multiplies the risk of supply chain disruption by layering extreme weather events on top of geopolitical friction. It multiplies the risk of state fragility by adding resource scarcity and forced displacement to political instability. It multiplies financial risk by adding unpredictable insurance losses and infrastructure damage to economic volatility. Therefore, effective risk analysis in this new era requires viewing climate not as a separate category of risk, but as a foundational variable that makes every other global threat more frequent, more severe, and more deeply interconnected.

Energy Transition and its Geopolitical Consequences

The 2023-2025 period was characterized by a historic acceleration of the global energy transition, driven by a confluence of climate imperatives, technological advancements, and a redefined paradigm of energy security. This shift away from fossil fuels is not only reshaping the global energy mix but is also fundamentally reconfiguring geopolitical relationships and creating new arenas of strategic competition.

Acceleration of Renewable Energy Adoption

The deployment of renewable energy technologies surged at an unprecedented rate. Global annual renewable capacity additions were projected to climb from 683 GW in 2024 to nearly 890 GW by 2030.81 A major milestone is expected by the end of 2025 or early 2026, when renewables are forecast to surpass coal as the largest source of global electricity generation. By 2030, renewables are projected to account for 43% of the world's electricity.81

This rapid growth is overwhelmingly driven by solar photovoltaics (PV) and wind power, which together are expected to account for 96% of all new renewable capacity added through 2030, primarily due to their increasing cost-competitiveness.81 The momentum was so strong that in the first half of 2025, the growth in solar and wind generation alone was sufficient to meet and exceed the entire growth in global electricity demand for that period.83 This trend was particularly pronounced in major economies; in the United States, for example, solar power accounted for 53% of all new electricity generating capacity in 2023 and surged to over 69% in the first quarter of 2025.84

Key Developments in Supporting Technologies

The rapid expansion of intermittent renewables has spurred parallel growth in essential enabling technologies:

• Energy Storage: The global energy storage market is poised for explosive growth, driven by the critical need for grid stability. A major catalyst for this expansion is the pledge made at COP29 to increase global energy storage capacity six-fold by 2030. China, the United States (buoyed by incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act), and Europe are leading a global wave of investment in grid-scale batteries, pumped-hydro storage, and other solutions designed to balance variable renewable energy sources.85
• Nuclear Power: The role of nuclear energy in the transition also saw renewed attention. Global nuclear generation reached a record high in 2024, with new capacity growth concentrated in Asia, particularly China. While the global fleet of reactors is aging, there is growing recognition of nuclear power's ability to provide reliable, low-carbon, firm power to complement renewables. However, significant challenges remain, as new construction projects outside of China and Russia continue to be plagued by long timelines and high costs.87

The New Geopolitics of Energy Security

The energy transition is fundamentally reshaping the geopolitics of energy. The paradigm of energy security has evolved, with the focus shifting from securing access to global fossil fuel markets to ensuring domestic energy independence and resilience. The narrative has moved from a "green premium" (the extra cost of clean energy) to a "security premium," where domestically produced renewable energy is valued as a strategic asset that insulates a nation from the volatility of global energy markets and geopolitical shocks.90

This has spurred a move away from a globally integrated fossil fuel market toward more localized and regionalized energy models.90 However, this shift creates new forms of dependency. Instead of reliance on oil and gas producers, a new reliance is emerging on the highly concentrated supply chains for critical minerals (such as lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements) and clean energy technologies (like solar panels and batteries), a domain where China holds a dominant position.92

The broader trend of geopolitical fragmentation is deeply impacting the energy transition. Rising tensions and strategic competition are influencing investment decisions, creating uncertainty, and leading to the formation of competing energy blocs.93 This is evident in the reconfiguration of major energy relationships. Russia, largely cut off from its traditional European gas markets, has executed a strategic pivot to Asia, dramatically increasing its oil and gas exports to China through pipelines like the Power of Siberia. This has created a new, deeply asymmetric energy dependency, with Moscow increasingly reliant on Beijing as its primary customer.96

While the stated global goal, reiterated at international forums like COP28, is a unified and cooperative transition to net-zero emissions 82, the actual drivers on the ground are increasingly nationalistic and security-focused. The primary motivations for many nations' accelerated push into renewables are now centered on achieving energy independence from geopolitical rivals (as seen in Europe's response to Russia) and capturing the immense economic and industrial benefits of clean technology manufacturing (as exemplified by the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act and China's long-standing industrial policy).90

This has led to a landscape characterized not by global cooperation, but by protectionist measures, massive domestic subsidies, and intense competition over the control of critical mineral supply chains and clean technologies.49 This dynamic aligns perfectly with the broader geopolitical trend of a "fracturing world".79 The energy transition is no longer happening despite geopolitical competition; it has become a primary arena for that competition.

The result is a "Balkanization" of the global energy transition. Different geopolitical blocs—the U.S. and its allies, China, India, and others—are pursuing distinct and often competing transition pathways. These pathways are dictated by national security imperatives and industrial policy goals, not by a coordinated global plan. This is creating a fragmented global energy landscape with varying technological standards, competing supply chains, and divergent regulatory environments. While this competition may accelerate the deployment of clean energy within individual nations for strategic reasons, the lack of global coordination and the rise of "green protectionism" could ultimately slow the overall pace of global decarbonization and make achieving collective climate goals more challenging.

Part III: Systemic Transformations and New Frontiers

This section explores emergent domains of competition and fundamental shifts in societal structures, economic models, and the very definition of global commons.

The Transformation of Work, Wealth, and Well-being

The 2023-2025 period solidified profound shifts in the lived economic experience of people worldwide. The aftershocks of the pandemic permanently altered the nature of work, while persistent economic pressures created a deepening crisis in affordability and inequality, fueling widespread social and political discontent.

Work in Transformation: The New Normal

The fundamental structure of work underwent a permanent transformation. Hybrid work arrangements emerged as the dominant and preferred model for remote-capable employees. By August 2025, over half (52%) of the U.S. remote-capable workforce operated under a hybrid model, which was consistently associated with the highest levels of employee engagement compared to fully remote or fully in-office arrangements.97

The gig economy continued its expansion from a peripheral source of supplemental income to a core component of the modern labor market. In 2025, an estimated 70 million Americans participated in the gig economy, which now contributes significantly to national GDP. However, this growth has been accompanied by intense and largely unresolved legal and policy debates in jurisdictions around the world concerning worker classification—the distinction between an independent contractor and an employee—and the corresponding rights and access to benefits like healthcare and retirement savings.99

Simultaneously, automation and AI began to actively reshape job roles across industries. While this fueled anxieties about mass job displacement, the more immediate reality observed during this period was one of task automation and skill augmentation. AI tools increasingly handled routine tasks, freeing human workers to focus on more complex, creative, and strategic work. This dynamic, however, has dramatically widened the skills gap, making large-scale corporate reskilling and upskilling initiatives a critical priority for business competitiveness and workforce stability.38

Everyday Economics: The Persistent Squeeze

Despite the moderation of headline inflation from its 2022 peaks, the cost of living remained a primary and persistent source of anxiety for households globally. In the United States, after a period of cooling, inflation ticked up again to 3.0% in January 2025. Surveys revealed that a clear majority of Americans felt the financial strain, reporting that their monthly costs had increased significantly compared to the previous year.103 Food price inflation was a particularly acute driver of this pressure, with forecasts for 2025 indicating that food prices would continue to rise faster than their historical average.78

This cost-of-living pressure was compounded by a global housing affordability crisis that intensified to unprecedented levels. In the U.S., a perfect storm of high home prices (up 60% since 2019), elevated interest rates, and soaring property insurance and taxes created a deeply dysfunctional market. Existing home sales plummeted to a 30-year low, while the number of "cost-burdened" households—both renters and homeowners spending over 30% of their income on housing—reached record highs.105

Global Wealth Inequality

The economic pressures faced by ordinary households stood in stark contrast to the fortunes of the ultra-wealthy. The 2023-2025 period saw an extreme acceleration of wealth concentration at the very top of the global income ladder. According to Oxfam, the wealth of the world's five richest men has more than doubled since 2020, while nearly five billion people have become poorer. Billionaire wealth surged in 2024 at a rate three times faster than in 2023, and projections indicated the world could see its first trillionaire within a decade.108

Oxfam's 2025 report, "Takers, Not Makers," argues that this extreme inequality is not a byproduct of a healthy economy but a result of a rigged system. It contends that corporate power is used to suppress wages, dodge taxes, and privatize public services, funneling wealth to a small elite. The report also connects this dynamic to a neocolonial structure where wealth continues to be systematically extracted from the Global South to benefit the richest in the Global North.109

A defining socioeconomic characteristic of the 2023-2025 period is the profound disconnect between headline macroeconomic indicators and the lived economic reality of the majority. On the surface, certain macro data points suggest stability or even prosperity. Global unemployment rates have remained at historic lows 23, and corporate profits and the wealth of billionaires have exploded to record highs.110 In contrast, data reflecting the economic health of households paints a picture of immense and growing pressure. A record number of people are "cost-burdened" by housing 107, a majority report soaring monthly costs that outpace their income 104, and real wages have failed to keep up with inflation for hundreds of millions of workers globally.110 Social mobility is perceived to be shrinking, and the ability to afford a decent life is declining for many.79

This divergence is not a statistical anomaly but a structural feature of the contemporary global economy. The mechanisms generating wealth at the top—such as corporate profits driven by market concentration and suppressed labor costs, alongside asset appreciation fueled by monetary policy—are not trickling down to improve economic security for the majority. In fact, these very mechanisms are actively contributing to the financial squeeze on households. This 'Great Disconnect' serves as a primary engine for the widespread social and political instability observed globally. When official statistics report a "good" economy but the lived experience for most people is one of increasing precarity and anxiety, trust in institutions, experts, and political establishments erodes, creating fertile ground for the rise of populism and anti-establishment movements.112

Power, Identity, and Information in the Digital Age

The 2023-2025 period witnessed a dramatic reshaping of power and influence in a digitized and fragmented world. The rise of non-state actors, a global antitrust backlash against their concentrated power, and a deepening crisis in the information ecosystem defined this new landscape.

The Geopolitics of Influence: Non-State Power

The era solidified the status of major technology companies and their billionaire founders as formidable geopolitical actors, wielding influence that in some domains rivals that of nation-states.19 This emerging "technopolar world" is characterized by corporate control over the critical digital infrastructure of the 21st century, including satellite networks, cloud computing, and social media platforms. This control over data, algorithms, and communication channels has created a form of "hybrid sovereignty," where the internal policy decisions of a few unelected tech executives can have immediate and profound global geopolitical ramifications.

The war in Ukraine provided a stark example, where SpaceX's decision to provide—and later, to potentially restrict—its Starlink satellite service had a direct impact on the battlefield, demonstrating how private authority has become essential for national security functions.19 This privatization of power poses a fundamental challenge to traditional notions of state sovereignty and democratic accountability, as key decisions affecting public discourse, election integrity, and even military conflict are made in corporate boardrooms rather than legislative chambers.19

Market Concentration and the Antitrust Response

The immense and growing power of a handful of large technology firms triggered a significant and coordinated global regulatory backlash. The years 2024 and 2025 were marked by a series of landmark antitrust cases and new regulations in both the United States and the European Union, signaling a concerted effort by states to reassert their authority over dominant digital platforms.113

• In the United States, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission advanced major antitrust lawsuits against Google (for alleged monopolies in search and advertising technology), Meta (for its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp), Amazon (for its dominance in online retail), and Apple (for its control over the smartphone ecosystem).114
• In the European Union, the landmark Digital Markets Act (DMA) came into full effect, imposing a new set of pro-competitive obligations on designated "gatekeeper" platforms. The first non-compliance decisions under the DMA were issued in April 2025, with Apple and Meta facing significant fines for practices that restricted competition and violated new rules on data usage.113

This global regulatory push reflects a broader "Year of Regulatory Shift" in 2025, as governments around the world move from a hands-off approach to a more assertive posture in their attempts to rein in corporate market concentration and promote fairer digital competition.116

Company	Jurisdiction	Key Allegation / Action	Status (as of late 2025)
Google/Alphabet	US	Illegal monopoly in online search and ad tech markets.	Found liable in both cases; remedies trials scheduled for 2025.
	EU	Self-preferencing in search results; non-compliance with DMA.	Ongoing investigations and preliminary findings of non-compliance.
Apple	US	Illegal monopoly over premium smartphone market via restrictive ecosystem.	Lawsuit filed in March 2024; trial pending.
	EU	Non-compliance with DMA by restricting app developers' communication with customers.	Fined €500 million in April 2025 and ordered to remove restrictions.
Meta	US	Illegal monopoly in "personal social networking" via acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.	Trial took place in April-May 2025; decision pending.
	EU	Non-compliance with DMA via "Consent or Pay" model for data use.	Fined €200 million in April 2025.
Amazon	US	Illegal monopoly in online retail via punitive seller policies and self-preferencing.	Trial scheduled to begin in February 2027.

Sources: 113

Information, Culture, and Identity

The digital age has profoundly fragmented the information ecosystem, particularly along generational lines. For younger cohorts like Gen Z, media consumption is spread thinly across a multitude of platforms—including websites, YouTube, streaming services, music apps, and podcasts—with no single channel capable of achieving the mass reach that defined previous media eras.117 This fragmentation makes shared cultural experiences rarer and poses a significant challenge to traditional models of advertising, political communication, and social cohesion.

Into this fragmented landscape, the creator economy has matured into a major industry. Individual content creators have become powerful nodes of influence, shaping consumer behavior, cultural trends, and public discourse. In this economy, authenticity and relatability have become the key currencies, with audiences often placing more trust in creators they feel a personal connection with than in traditional advertising or institutional voices.118 However, this ecosystem is also highly susceptible to manipulation. The rise of AI-generated content has further complicated the landscape, with surveys showing that a majority of consumers are less likely to trust content they perceive to be generated by AI, even as its prevalence grows.118

The dynamics of the digital age have brought a fundamental 'Sovereignty Trilemma' into sharp focus for nations worldwide. Three powerful and often conflicting forces are at play: first, the rise of powerful, transnational technology corporations that function as "data sovereigns" with their own rules and global infrastructure 19; second, the reassertion of state sovereignty through aggressive regulation, antitrust enforcement, and data localization laws 113; and third, the inherently decentralized, borderless nature of the digital technologies themselves, such as AI and the internet.

This creates a trilemma where a state cannot simultaneously achieve all three of the following objectives: (A) full national sovereignty over its digital domain (complete control over data, content, and rules); (B) full and frictionless participation in the global, innovative digital economy (benefiting from global platforms and the free flow of data); and (C) allowing technology platforms to operate with complete autonomy. A strategic trade-off must be made.

The 2023-2025 period has seen different major powers make different choices. The European Union, with its comprehensive GDPR and AI Act, has clearly prioritized regulatory sovereignty (A), even at the potential cost of a slower pace of innovation (B).46 China has long prioritized absolute state sovereignty (A) by creating its own "walled-garden" ecosystem, deliberately sacrificing full participation in the global internet (B). The United States, which historically prioritized platform autonomy and innovation (C and B), has now begun to move more aggressively toward reasserting state sovereignty (A) through its landmark antitrust actions.114 These divergent strategic choices are creating the regulatory and infrastructural foundations for a "Splinternet," where the once-global digital world fractures into distinct blocs, each operating under different rules and reflecting different balances within this trilemma.

The Bio-Revolution and the Future of Humanity

The 2023-2025 period witnessed an acceleration of the bio-revolution, as breakthroughs in life sciences moved from the laboratory to clinical and commercial application. Advances in gene editing, synthetic biology, and longevity research began to transform human capabilities, food systems, and our very understanding of aging, while simultaneously raising profound new ethical and regulatory questions.

Gene Editing Matures: From Lab to Clinic

A pivotal moment for the field of biotechnology occurred in late 2023 with the first regulatory approvals in the UK and US for CASGEVY, a CRISPR-based therapy for treating the genetic blood disorders sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia. This landmark event signaled the maturation of gene editing from a promising research tool into a tangible clinical reality, offering the potential for cures for previously intractable genetic diseases.119

Following this breakthrough, the clinical trial landscape for gene-editing therapies expanded dramatically. As of February 2025, over 150 active clinical trials were underway globally, utilizing a diverse array of editing tools to target a wide range of conditions, including various cancers, viral diseases like HIV, metabolic disorders, and autoimmune diseases.119 The convergence of AI with gene editing further accelerated this progress. The development of specialized AI tools, such as CRISPR-GPT, began to act as an "AI copilot" for researchers, helping to design more effective and safer gene-editing experiments, predict potential off-target effects, and make the complex technology more accessible to a wider scientific community.55

Synthetic Biology: Engineering Life

The field of synthetic biology—which applies engineering principles to design and construct new biological parts, devices, and systems—experienced explosive growth. The global synthetic biology market was projected to expand from approximately $17 billion in 2025 to over $63 billion by 2032, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of over 20%.120

This growth was driven by rapid technological advancements, particularly the integration of AI in designing novel biological systems and the increasing sophistication of gene-synthesis and editing tools.120 Applications for synthetic biology expanded rapidly across numerous sectors. In healthcare, it is being used for advanced drug development, diagnostics, and gene therapies. In industry, it is enabling the production of sustainable biofuels, specialty chemicals, and new biomaterials. In agriculture, it is being used to engineer crops with enhanced traits.40

Innovations in Food Security

Biotechnology began to offer novel and potentially transformative solutions to global food security challenges, which are being exacerbated by climate change. Cellular agriculture, the production of meat and other animal products from cell cultures rather than from live animals, moved closer to commercial reality. A key milestone was the first-ever U.S. FDA safety approval for a lab-grown fish product, paving the way for a new food source that promises to reduce the environmental impact of traditional fishing and farming.51 Alongside this, gene-editing techniques are being applied to develop crops with improved traits, such as enhanced resistance to drought, pests, and diseases, directly addressing the growing challenges of climate change on global agriculture.123

Longevity Research: From Healthspan to Lifespan

The quest to understand and slow the aging process transitioned from a fringe scientific interest to a major area of academic research and commercial investment. The global market for longevity and anti-aging therapies was projected to grow at over 20% annually.124 Research advanced on multiple fronts, with promising preclinical results for several classes of interventions:

• Senolytics: Drugs designed to selectively clear senescent "zombie" cells that accumulate with age and contribute to age-related diseases.
• NAD+ Boosters: Compounds that aim to replenish cellular levels of NAD+, a crucial coenzyme for metabolism and DNA repair that declines with age.
• Stem Cell Therapies: The use of stem cells for their regenerative potential to repair and rejuvenate aging tissues.126

AI played a transformative role in this field as well. Machine learning models were used to analyze vast datasets of human aging—including genomic, proteomic, and clinical data—to identify novel drug targets and potential anti-aging compounds. By 2025, a number of these AI-discovered compounds had already entered human clinical trials.125 The focus of the field also underwent a conceptual shift, moving beyond simply extending lifespan to enhancing "healthspan"—the period of life spent in good health. This has led to a rise in personalized, data-driven approaches that combine genomics, advanced biomarker tracking, nutrition, and data from wearable technology to create tailored wellness protocols.127

The rapid advancements across the life sciences during this period are not isolated events but are driven by a powerful, self-reinforcing cycle: the 'Bio-Digital Convergence Loop'. This is more than just the application of AI to biological problems. It is a feedback loop where advances in computational science enable new breakthroughs in biological science, and those biological breakthroughs, in turn, generate massive new datasets and new paradigms that fuel the next generation of computational tools.

The "digital-to-bio" pathway is evident where better digital tools, particularly AI, allow scientists to understand and engineer biology with unprecedented speed and precision. AI is accelerating the design of gene-editing experiments 55, creating novel biological systems in synthetic biology 121, and identifying new drug targets in longevity research by parsing immense datasets.125

Simultaneously, a "bio-to-digital" pathway is emerging. Biology itself is becoming a new substrate for computation and data storage. The very premise of synthetic biology is to program DNA as if it were a biological computer.121 The development of DNA-based data storage, though still nascent, points to a future where biological molecules store vast amounts of digital information.128

This creates a virtuous cycle: more powerful AI leads to a deeper understanding of biology, which generates more high-quality biological data, which is then used to train even more powerful and specialized AI models. This bio-digital convergence loop is the engine driving the exponential progress seen across gene editing, synthetic biology, and longevity research. It suggests that the pace of innovation in the life sciences will not be linear but will continue to accelerate dramatically, representing one of the most powerful transformative forces of the 21st century.

Competition in the Global Commons

The 2023-2025 period saw a marked expansion of geopolitical and commercial competition into the "global commons"—domains that are beyond the traditional jurisdiction of any single state. Space, the polar regions, the deep sea, and the undersea domain have transitioned from being peripheral frontiers to central arenas of strategic rivalry, driven by technological advancement and the global hunt for resources and influence.

The New Space Race: Commercialization and Militarization

The competition in space intensified, characterized by a dual track of rapid commercialization and growing militarization. The race to the Moon was renewed with vigor; Japan successfully landed its SLIM spacecraft in January 2024, and China's Chang'e program continued its ambitious missions to the far side of the moon.129 The commercial sector also made significant strides, with a U.S.-based startup, Vast, expected to launch the first commercial space station in August 2025, heralding a new era of private enterprise in low-Earth orbit.130

This commercial dynamism was shadowed by escalating geopolitical tensions. Space has firmly become a contested domain of great power competition. In May 2024, U.S. officials publicly accused Russia of placing a space-based anti-satellite weapon into orbit, a significant and destabilizing development. China, meanwhile, continued to rapidly expand its constellations of military surveillance and communication satellites. This growing militarization of space is occurring in a regulatory vacuum, as the few existing international agreements, such as the Outer Space Treaty, are ill-equipped to govern these new military activities, raising the risk of conflict extending into orbit.129

The Arctic and Antarctic: Geopolitical Hotspots in a Melting World

The rapid and accelerating impacts of climate change have transformed the Earth's polar regions from remote scientific outposts into strategic geopolitical hotspots.131

• The Arctic: As sea ice retreats at an alarming rate, the prospect of new, seasonal shipping routes like the Northern Sea Route and easier access to the region's vast natural resources has heightened security concerns. The focus of the Arctic Council, the region's primary governance forum, has tangibly shifted from its traditional emphasis on environmental protection and indigenous communities toward issues of security and sovereignty. Russia's significant military buildup in its Arctic territories and China's self-declaration as a "near-Arctic" power have prompted a more coordinated and robust security posture from NATO allies in the region, including increased military exercises and infrastructure investment.133
• The Antarctic: While Antarctica is governed by the 1959 Antarctic Treaty System, which dedicates the continent to peace and science and freezes all territorial claims, the consensus-based system is showing signs of strain. The growing presence and activities of China and Russia are a source of increasing concern for Western treaty members. In particular, the potential dual-use (civilian and military) nature of new research stations and satellite ground infrastructure is challenging the treaty's spirit and raising fears that great power competition could undermine the continent's unique status as a zone of international cooperation.135

Undersea Infrastructure: The Unseen Battlefield

The critical vulnerability of the global network of undersea submarine cables, which carry over 95% of all international data and communications, became a major security concern. Disruptions to this vital infrastructure are frequent, with over 200 cable repairs reported in 2023 alone, mostly due to accidental damage from fishing and shipping activities.137

However, the primary concern has shifted to the threat of intentional sabotage, particularly from state actors engaging in hybrid warfare. The coordinated disruption of multiple cables in the Baltic Sea in November 2024, which followed a similar incident in 2023, heightened these fears. The repeated observation of Russian and Chinese naval and "research" vessels loitering near the locations of critical cable routes has raised alarms among Western security officials. These incidents underscore the potential for a hostile actor to cripple a nation's economy and communications by targeting this unseen and largely unprotected infrastructure.138

Deep Sea Mining: The Next Resource Frontier

The global energy transition has fueled a surge in demand for critical minerals like cobalt, nickel, and manganese, which are essential for batteries and other clean energy technologies. This has intensified the push to open up a new and controversial resource frontier: deep sea mining. Polymetallic nodules on the deep ocean floor contain vast quantities of these minerals.

This commercial drive has created a tense standoff at the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the UN-affiliated body tasked with regulating mining in international waters. Throughout 2024 and 2025, negotiations to finalize a regulatory framework for commercial-scale mining remained deadlocked. Significant gaps persist in crucial areas, including environmental impact assessment requirements, compliance mechanisms, and rules on liability for environmental damage.140

In response to the scientific uncertainty about the potential for irreversible damage to unique and poorly understood deep-sea ecosystems, a growing coalition of nations—numbering 32 by the summer of 2024—along with numerous corporations and civil society groups, has called for a precautionary pause or moratorium on all deep-sea mining activities.140 The debate also has strong geopolitical undercurrents, with China actively positioning itself to dominate the future sector through exploration contracts and technological development, while the United States, not being a signatory to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, remains an observer with limited influence at the ISA.141

The competition unfolding in these new domains—space, the poles, and the deep sea—reveals a fundamental shift in the nature of geopolitics. The new arenas of rivalry are not defined by traditional territorial boundaries but are fundamentally about infrastructure: satellite constellations that provide global connectivity and surveillance 129, new shipping lanes that could redraw global trade maps in the Arctic 133, fiber-optic cables that form the backbone of the digital economy 139, and access to the mineral nodes on the seabed that will fuel the next industrial revolution.141

In these domains, power is not exercised primarily through the direct conquest of land. Instead, it is projected by building, controlling, or possessing the capability to disrupt the critical infrastructure that enables the global flow of data, goods, energy, and resources. This represents an 'infrastructuralization' of geopolitics. This shift is deeply connected to other major trends of the era. The geopolitical influence of large tech companies, for example, stems from their ownership and operation of much of this new global infrastructure, such as satellite internet constellations and undersea cables.19 The geopolitics of the energy transition is what drives the intense competition for the resources located in these new frontiers, like deep-sea minerals.140 The "great game" of the 21st century is increasingly being played in the global commons, and the primary assets are no longer just armies and territories, but satellites, cables, ports, and the legal and technological access rights to the resources that will build the infrastructure of tomorrow.

The World in Motion: Migration as a Systemic Force

Human movement, in its diverse forms, has emerged as a defining systemic force in the 2023-2025 period, acting as both a consequence of global crises and a powerful driver of economic, social, and political change.

Climate-Induced Migration: A Present Reality

The era saw the definitive establishment of climate change as a direct and accelerating driver of human mobility. No longer a future projection, climate-induced migration became a present-day reality. In 2023 alone, climate-related disasters such as floods, storms, and wildfires were responsible for triggering 26.4 million new internal displacements globally.71 International organizations like the International Organization for Migration (IOM) have issued urgent calls for concrete policy solutions, warning that without significant climate action and adaptation measures, regions like North Africa could see millions of internal climate migrants by 2050.72 This form of migration is not a simple, isolated phenomenon; it interacts with and exacerbates existing socioeconomic vulnerabilities, creating complex humanitarian challenges.80

Skilled Worker Migration and the 'Brain Gain' Debate

The global competition for talent continued to drive the migration of high-skilled workers, particularly in high-demand sectors like technology, engineering, and healthcare.146 While this phenomenon has traditionally been viewed through the lens of "brain drain"—a net loss for the countries of origin—a more nuanced "brain gain" perspective has gained significant traction, supported by recent research. Studies from 2025 suggest that the very prospect of migrating for better opportunities abroad creates a powerful incentive for greater investment in education and skills development within the home country, potentially leading to an overall increase in the domestic talent pool. Furthermore, skilled migrants often contribute significantly back to their countries of origin through remittances, foreign direct investment, and the transfer of valuable knowledge, technology, and social norms.147

The Rise of Digital Nomadism

The remote work revolution, catalyzed by the COVID-19 pandemic, has matured into the mainstream global phenomenon of digital nomadism. The population of individuals leveraging technology to work location-independently soared past 50 million in 2025, a dramatic increase from 35 million in 2023.149 This trend has profound economic implications. Digital nomads, who are often high-earning professionals, are estimated to inject nearly $800 million annually into local economies around the world. In response, a global competition to attract this mobile, high-spending demographic has emerged, with over 70 countries offering specialized digital nomad visas or similar residency programs by 2025.149 However, the influx of digital nomads has also created significant challenges in popular destinations, including increased pressure on local housing markets, rising costs of living for residents, and complex unresolved issues related to taxation and social integration.153

Refugee Flows and Political Consequences

Forced displacement due to conflict and persecution continued to drive major refugee flows globally. The protracted and brutal wars in Ukraine, Sudan, Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Syria remained the primary sources of refugees.154 The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) projected that a staggering 2.9 million refugees would be in need of resettlement in 2025, a figure that has more than doubled since 2021. The capacity of the international community to meet these needs remains severely strained, hampered by increasingly restrictive asylum policies in many host countries, limited reception capacity, and the significant political consequences of large-scale refugee flows, which often fuel social tensions and political polarization in receiving nations.154

The diverse and concurrent migration flows of this era reveal that human movement has become a 'Dual-Engine' of the global system, serving simultaneously as a primary indicator of systemic stress and a critical source of economic and social dynamism.

On one hand, forced migration acts as a 'Stress Engine'. The massive displacement of people due to conflict and climate change 71 is a direct consequence of systemic failures—be it in governance, peace-building, or climate adaptation. These flows place immense strain on humanitarian systems, stretch public services in host countries to their breaking point, and create significant friction in international relations. This engine is a barometer of global instability.

On the other hand, voluntary migration functions as a 'Dynamism Engine'. The movement of skilled workers and digital nomads is a key mechanism for the efficient global allocation of talent, the transfer of knowledge, and the injection of economic vitality into new regions.146 It fuels innovation in technology hubs, provides capital to local economies, and even creates positive incentives for human capital development in countries of origin through the "brain gain" effect.148 This engine is a critical driver of global growth and innovation.

The central policy challenge for the international community is managing this duality. The world must find ways to mitigate the instability and suffering caused by the 'stress engine' of forced displacement while simultaneously harnessing the innovative and economic power generated by the 'dynamism engine' of voluntary mobility. These are not separate phenomena to be addressed by different policy silos; they are two sides of the same coin of a world in profound motion.

The Multipolar Rebalancing in Practice

Beyond the headline competition between the United States, China, and Russia, the 2023-2025 period was defined by the growing influence and assertiveness of regional and middle powers. These nations are not merely reacting to great power dynamics but are actively shaping the new global order through their own distinct economic, technological, and diplomatic strategies.

India's Emergence as a Tech and Geopolitical Power

India's rise as a major global player accelerated significantly. Its foreign policy is characterized by a commitment to "strategic autonomy" and a pragmatic "multi-alignment" approach, engaging with multiple power blocs without being drawn into formal alliances.155 Technologically, India is positioning itself as a global powerhouse. This strategy is built on a foundation of robust Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), such as the Aadhaar biometric ID system and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which have been transformative domestically. India is now seeking to export this model as a form of soft power. The "Make in India" initiative, coupled with strategic investments in AI, 6G telecommunications, and a domestic semiconductor industry, is aimed at reducing the country's reliance on Western technology platforms and Chinese hardware, and asserting its own technological sovereignty.156

The Middle East's Transformation

Key nations in the Persian Gulf, particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are undertaking ambitious and large-scale economic transformations aimed at diversifying their economies away from hydrocarbon dependency. This is being powered by massive sovereign wealth fund investments into technology, renewable energy, tourism, and entertainment.159 Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 is the cornerstone of this effort, a comprehensive blueprint driving billions of dollars into solar and wind power, a national AI strategy, and futuristic giga-projects like the city of NEOM.160 The UAE has similarly made AI a national priority, launching initiatives to build world-leading supercomputing infrastructure and cementing Dubai's status as a global hub for finance, trade, and financial technology.159

Africa's Demographic Dividend and Technology Leapfrogging

Africa's demographic trajectory presents one of the most significant long-term opportunities and challenges for the global system. The continent's population is projected to double by 2050, creating a massive "youth bulge." If harnessed effectively through investment in education and job creation, this could yield a powerful "demographic dividend" of economic growth and innovation. If not, it risks becoming a source of mass unemployment and instability.163 The continent is actively leveraging technology to "leapfrog" traditional, infrastructure-heavy development pathways. Mobile technology has already revolutionized sectors like banking, with platforms like Kenya's M-Pesa becoming global models for financial inclusion. There is immense potential for further leapfrogging through the deployment of decentralized renewable energy systems and other digital innovations. However, this potential remains severely constrained by a massive deficit in foundational infrastructure, particularly reliable electricity and widespread, affordable internet access.163

Latin America's Political Shifts and Resource Nationalism

Latin America is navigating a period of complex political shifts, with a new generation of left-leaning governments attempting to balance demands for greater social equity with the need for fiscal prudence and economic growth.167 A defining trend of the era is the rise of "Green Resource Nationalism." This is particularly evident in the "Lithium Triangle" of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, which holds the majority of the world's lithium reserves. As lithium becomes a critical mineral for the global energy transition, these nations are asserting greater state control over its extraction and processing. This strategy aims to capture a larger share of the value chain and ensure that the benefits of the green revolution are realized domestically. This has created a complex and sometimes volatile investment environment, as these countries navigate the intense geopolitical rivalry between the United States and China for access to these strategic resources.168

ASEAN's Navigation of Great Power Competition

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has continued to pursue its long-standing strategy of maintaining "ASEAN centrality" within the evolving geopolitical architecture of the Indo-Pacific. Caught between the competing interests of the United States and China, the bloc's "ASEAN 2025: Forging Ahead Together" vision reaffirms its commitment to being a rules-based, cohesive, and responsive community. The core of ASEAN's strategy is to avoid taking sides, instead seeking to deepen engagement with all external powers and maintain its role as the primary platform for regional diplomacy and cooperation, thereby navigating the pressures of great power competition.171

A common thread connects the development strategies of these diverse rising powers: the emergence of 'Techno-National' development models. Unlike the export-led industrialization models of the 20th century, which focused on integrating into existing global supply chains, this new model prioritizes the creation of sovereign technological capabilities as the central engine of both economic growth and geopolitical standing.

This is not simply about adopting technology from abroad; it is about building the capacity to innovate, produce, and control the key technologies of the future. India's development of its own comprehensive digital public infrastructure is explicitly aimed at reducing foreign dependency and exporting its own model as a form of soft power.157 Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 and the UAE's national AI strategy are designed to use technology to leapfrog from a resource-based economy to a knowledge-based one, securing their relevance and influence in a post-oil world.159 Latin America's "Green Resource Nationalism" is a strategy to leverage sovereign control over a key technological input—lithium—for strategic and economic advantage.169 These nations are building their national identity and international influence around their capacity to innovate and control the technologies of the future. This represents a fundamental shift in development strategy for the 21st century, where technological prowess is seen as synonymous with national power.

Education and Knowledge Systems in Crisis

The 2023-2025 period exposed fundamental challenges to global education and knowledge creation systems, driven by the disruptive force of artificial intelligence and the rapidly evolving demands of the global economy. This has precipitated a crisis in academic integrity, widened the gap between available skills and employer needs, and called into question the value of traditional educational credentials.

AI's Impact on Academic Integrity

The widespread availability and increasing sophistication of generative AI tools like ChatGPT created a profound crisis for academic integrity at all levels of education. These tools made it possible for students to generate essays, solve problems, and complete assignments with minimal effort, circumventing traditional learning processes and making it difficult for educators to assess genuine understanding.172

This technological shift has also altered student perceptions of what constitutes academic misconduct. While using AI to write an entire paper is still widely viewed as a major infraction, many students perceive using AI for smaller tasks—like generating ideas, drafting paragraphs, or improving writing—as less severe, blurring the lines of academic honesty.174 Educational institutions have struggled to formulate a coherent response. Early efforts to rely on AI detection tools proved largely ineffective, with studies showing them to be both unreliable and potentially biased.175 Consequently, the focus has shifted from a technological arms race of detection to a pedagogical rethinking of assessment design. Educators are increasingly moving away from assignments that test rote memorization and basic comprehension—tasks that AI can easily perform—and toward assessments that require higher-order cognitive skills such as critical thinking, creativity, real-world problem-solving, and in-person presentations.173

The Widening Skills Gap and the Rise of Alternative Credentials

The same technological forces disrupting education are also transforming the labor market, rendering existing skills obsolete at an unprecedented pace. The World Economic Forum's 2025 report projects that nearly 40% of a worker's core skills will be disrupted or need updating between 2025 and 2030.177 This rapidly widening "skills gap" is viewed by a majority of global companies as the single biggest barrier to their future growth and transformation, creating intense pressure to invest in large-scale corporate reskilling and upskilling initiatives.179

In response to this demand for rapid and targeted skills acquisition, the market for alternative credentials—including professional certificates, micro-credentials, and digital badges—has exploded. The global market for these credentials was projected to grow from approximately $22 billion in 2025 to nearly $70 billion by 2032.120 These credentials have gained significant currency with both learners and employers. Surveys show that an overwhelming majority of employers (96%) believe micro-credentials strengthen a job application, and 90% are willing to offer higher starting salaries to candidates who hold them.182 This reflects a broader, systemic shift in hiring practices toward a "skills-first" approach, where demonstrated competencies are valued as much as, or sometimes more than, traditional academic degrees.184

The Crisis in the Value of Credentials

The dual pressures of AI—which can replicate many of the outputs of traditional education—and the skills gap—which traditional education is often too slow to fill—have created a crisis in the perceived value and return on investment of traditional academic credentials. There is a growing consensus among employers and employees alike that evidence of newly acquired, specific skills, such as through certifications and micro-credentials, will be as valued as traditional university degrees by 2035.184 The primary challenge for traditional higher education institutions is the current lack of integration between these new, flexible, and industry-aligned credentials and the established structures of formal degree programs, creating a disconnect between the worlds of academia and work.181

The forces reshaping the world of knowledge and work signify the beginning of the great 'Unbundling' of higher education. For centuries, the university degree has been a "bundled" product, combining several distinct functions: the transmission of knowledge, the training of practical skills, the facilitation of social and professional networks, and the provision of a credential that signals competence to employers. The 2023-2025 period has seen each of these functions being picked apart and offered more efficiently, cheaply, or effectively by new technologies and new types of providers.

The knowledge transmission function is being challenged by AI, which can deliver information and synthesize basic concepts on demand. The skills training and credentialing functions are being challenged by the corporate world and online platforms, which offer faster, more targeted micro-credentials that are highly valued by employers for their immediate relevance.182 Professional networking is increasingly happening on dedicated digital platforms. This 'unbundling' is creating a new, modular, and lifelong educational ecosystem. In this new landscape, learners will increasingly assemble their own unique portfolios of knowledge and credentials from a variety of sources—some from traditional universities, some from corporate training programs, some from online platforms, and some through self-directed, AI-assisted learning. The long-term value proposition for traditional universities will increasingly depend on their ability to excel at the functions that cannot be easily unbundled and commoditized: fostering deep critical thinking, providing in-person mentorship and community, and facilitating unique, hands-on research and creative experiences.

Conclusion: A World of Interconnected Volatility

The period from 2023 to 2025 was not defined by a single, overarching trend but by the intense, compounding interaction of multiple systemic shifts. The global landscape was reshaped by a powerful confluence of geopolitical fragmentation, technological acceleration, and the tangible materialization of the climate crisis. These were not parallel developments; they were deeply interconnected, creating a feedback loop of volatility that has set the stage for the remainder of the decade.

The fracturing of the post-Cold War geopolitical order was the foundational shift, creating a competitive multipolar environment that prioritized national interest and strategic autonomy over global cooperation. This political fragmentation directly fueled economic fragmentation, as nations used trade policy as a geopolitical tool and rewired global supply chains for resilience rather than pure efficiency. This new world order created the demand for economic and technological sovereignty.

The explosive and mainstream adoption of artificial intelligence provided a powerful new set of tools to pursue this sovereignty, while simultaneously acting as a profound disruptor in its own right. AI became a general-purpose catalyst, accelerating scientific discovery, transforming labor markets, and creating a new domain of geopolitical competition. At the same time, it strained the global information ecosystem to a breaking point and presented unprecedented challenges to governance and social cohesion.

Acting as a pervasive stressor across all other domains was the climate crisis, which transitioned from a future risk to an immediate reality. Record-breaking temperatures, extreme weather events, and their cascading impacts on food security, human migration, and economic stability demonstrated that climate change is a systemic risk multiplier, intensifying every other challenge the world faces.

The defining dynamic of this era is therefore one of simultaneous acceleration and fragmentation. The pace of technological and environmental change is exponential, creating both unprecedented opportunities and existential risks. At the same time, our global political and economic structures are breaking apart into competing blocs, undermining the cooperative frameworks needed to manage these shared challenges. The world is moving faster and growing farther apart at the same time.

This era of interconnected volatility establishes the primary challenge for the coming years. Navigating the immense friction between these two mega-trends—managing the risks of a fragmenting world while attempting to responsibly harness the opportunities of accelerating technological and social change—will require a new level of resilience, adaptability, and strategic foresight from leaders, institutions, and societies across the globe.

Appendices

Appendix A: Key Timeline Markers (2023-2025)

This timeline documents the pivotal events and inflection points that defined the 2023-2025 period, serving as chronological anchors for the report's analysis.

• 2023
  • February 6: A 7.8-magnitude earthquake devastates parts of Turkey and Syria, killing over 50,000 people.186
  • March 17: The International Criminal Court issues an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.186
  • April 4: Finland officially joins NATO, becoming the alliance's 31st member.8
  • April 15: Conflict erupts in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).187
  • May 6: Coronation of King Charles III of the United Kingdom.186
  • June 24: The Wagner Group, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, stages a brief armed mutiny in Russia.186
  • October 7: Hamas launches a large-scale attack on southern Israel, killing over 1,100 people and taking hundreds of hostages, triggering the start of the Gaza War.187
  • December: The first CRISPR-based gene therapy, CASGEVY, receives regulatory approval in the UK and US for treating sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia.119
• 2024
  • January 1: Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates officially join the BRICS bloc.10
  • January: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approves the first spot Bitcoin ETFs, marking a milestone for institutional crypto adoption.34
  • March 7: Sweden officially joins NATO, becoming the alliance's 32nd member.8
  • March 22: A major terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall concert venue near Moscow kills 145 people.188
  • April/October: Iran and Israel engage in unprecedented direct military exchanges, including missile and drone strikes.15
  • Throughout the year: Global temperatures consistently break records, with 2024 confirmed as the warmest year on record and likely the first to exceed the 1.5°C warming threshold.61
  • November 5: Donald Trump is elected President of the United States.190
  • December 8: The regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria collapses after a swift rebel offensive.190
• 2025
  • January 20: Inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States.192
  • February: The new U.S. administration signals a major policy shift, moving to normalize relations with Russia and voting against a UN resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine.5
  • February 2: The ban on AI systems posing "unacceptable risks" under the EU's AI Act begins to apply.46
  • April-June: Landmark antitrust remedies trials and hearings take place in the U.S. concerning Google's and Meta's market dominance.115
  • October 9: Israel and Hamas agree to the first phase of a peace deal, leading to a ceasefire after nearly two years of conflict.193
  • November 10-21: The UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) is hosted in Belém, Brazil.194

Appendix B: Data Integrity and Measurement Challenges

A clear understanding of the global landscape requires acknowledging where information is contested, manipulated, or difficult to measure. The analysis in this report is subject to the following limitations:

• Economic Statistics: There is long-standing and well-documented skepticism regarding the reliability of official economic statistics from certain countries. Official GDP figures from China, for example, have been questioned due to historical data falsification at the provincial level, a lack of transparency, and unusually smooth growth trends. While the quality of Chinese statistics has improved relative to many other developing nations, these concerns persist.195 Similarly, official Russian statistics must be interpreted with caution. While there is little evidence of outright falsification of headline figures like GDP, data can be subject to manipulation through methodological changes, classification of sensitive information, and politically motivated interpretations, particularly in the current wartime context.196 Furthermore, bilateral trade data, such as that between China and Russia, often masks deep asymmetries in the relationship that are not apparent from headline figures alone.197
• Conflict Data: The quantification of the human cost of war is fraught with challenges. Casualty figures and displacement numbers from active conflict zones such as Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan are typically estimates compiled by a variety of actors, including UN agencies, local health ministries, and non-governmental organizations. These figures are often difficult to verify independently in real-time and can vary significantly between sources. Moreover, in the context of modern warfare, the release of such data can itself be a component of information operations, with different parties having an incentive to inflate or downplay numbers to suit their strategic narratives.
• Measuring AI's Economic Impact: There is a profound measurement challenge in quantifying the true economic impact of artificial intelligence. Current macroeconomic statistics, including GDP, were not designed to capture the value created by a general-purpose technology like AI. AI-related production is often commingled with general software publishing, R&D investment, and computer services, making it impossible to isolate its specific contribution using existing data sources.200 This has led to a lack of academic consensus on AI's productivity effects and wildly divergent forecasts from major financial and consulting institutions, indicating a high degree of uncertainty about its macroeconomic scale.201
• Disinformation and Data Manipulation: A foundational challenge to understanding the current global landscape is that the information environment itself has become a domain of conflict. State-sponsored foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) campaigns, particularly from Russia and China, are a pervasive feature of the geopolitical environment. These campaigns utilize a range of techniques, including armies of bots, AI-generated synthetic media (deepfakes), and the co-opting of local media outlets, to manipulate public opinion, fuel polarization, and interfere with democratic processes.44 This weaponization of information makes it increasingly difficult for analysts and the public alike to establish a clear, factual baseline on certain critical geopolitical issues.

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