A lithium bust leaves Latin American towns in the dust

22 October 2025 at 05:00

Tolar Grande, a windswept settlement perched at 11,500 feet above sea level in northern Argentina, once received little more than a trickle of visitors. Then, in the late 2010s, hostels...

View of Tolar Grande, in Salta Province, Argentina on October 1, 2025. Anita Pouchard Serra / Rest of World.

The world needs more spaceports. Oman wants to help

Rest of World

By: Laura Jedeed

21 October 2025 at 05:00

Oman’s dream for a spaceport sits in a swath of desert overlooking the Arabian Sea. If all goes according to plan, three separate complexes here will launch everything from small...

The launchpade at the Etlaq spaceport in Oman

Japanese convenience stores are hiring robots run by workers in the Philippines

Rest of World

By: Michael Beltran

20 October 2025 at 05:00

Inside a multistory office building in Manila’s financial district, around 60 young men and women monitored and controlled artificial intelligence robots restocking convenience store shelves in distant Japan. Occasionally, when...

EVs are depreciating much faster than gas-powered cars

Rest of World

By: Ananya Bhattacharya

17 October 2025 at 05:00

The resale value of electric vehicles is collapsing worldwide, hurting private owners and fleet operators. The crisis became especially apparent when BluSmart, India’s pioneering all-electric ride-hailing service, collapsed in April...

China, Taiwan, and the vulnerable web of undersea cables

Rest of World

By: Samanth Subramanian

16 October 2025 at 05:00

In February 2023, half a year or so before I visited, a couple of Chinese ships cut two domestic undersea cables running out from Taiwan’s main island. One of these,...

Two Taiwan Coast Guard personnel board a Togo-flagged cargo ship suspected of damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan Island and Penghu Island on February 25, 2025.

AI-powered textbooks fail to make the grade in South Korea

Rest of World

By: Junhyup Kwon

15 October 2025 at 05:00

Ko Ho-dam, a high school junior on South Korea’s Jeju Island, was at first curious to hear that the government planned to roll out artificial intelligence-powered textbooks. The program would...

AI flood forecasting allows aid to reach farmers before disaster strikes

Rest of World

By: Jesmin Papri and Gayathri Vaidyanathan

14 October 2025 at 05:00

Farmers on Jamira, a tiny island on Bangladesh’s flood-prone Jamuna River, are used to warring with the river that’s eating their land. Next year, they’ll have one more weapon in...

The AI dilemma: To compete with China, the U.S. needs Chinese talent

Rest of World

By: Mehran Gul

13 October 2025 at 05:00

As Washington tries to curb Chinese influence in artificial intelligence, Silicon Valley can’t get enough of Chinese researchers. The tension highlights a paradox at the heart of America’s AI strategy:...

Indonesia’s film industry embraces AI to make Hollywood-style movies for cheap

Rest of World

By: Linda Yulisman

10 October 2025 at 05:00

OpenAI last week launched Sora 2, an artificial intelligence model that can generate high-definition video clips with sound and more realistic physics. The release has been described by the company...

Tesla starts slashing prices amid costly battle with BYD

Rest of World

By: Ananya Bhattacharya

9 October 2025 at 04:00

Tesla has cut prices on its bestselling models to compete with Chinese rivals that have been giving it a run for its money. On October 7, the company reduced the...

A worker cleans a Tesla Model Y electric vehicle at the newly opened Tesla Inc. store at Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) in Mumbai, India, on Tuesday, July 15, 2025. Tesla opened its first India showroom, showcasing Model Y cars priced at nearly $70,000, as Elon Musk's electric-vehicle maker looks to tap new markets and offset slowing sales where it's already well established. Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The Chinese migrant workers powering the deadly EV nickel boom

Rest of World

By: Wufei Yu

8 October 2025 at 05:00

This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center and The Uproot Project Environmental Justice Fellowship. It was produced by Grist and republished by Rest of World. As W.H. Wong hugged his family goodbye...

traffic around one of the main crossings near an entrance of the industrial compound in Morowali

Courts don’t know what to do about AI crimes

Rest of World

By: Juliana Bedoya

7 October 2025 at 05:00

Shortly after Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay was shot at a political rally in June, hundreds of videos of the attack flooded social media. Some of these turned out...

Young people in China are embracing AI therapy

Rest of World

By: Yi-Ling Liu

6 October 2025 at 05:00

Jiying Zhang, a nutritionist and health coach, saw a therapist for four years before she decided to try DeepSeek. She was immediately impressed. The artificial intelligence model provided support instantly,...

China’s most infamous ghost town is now training ground for driverless trucks

Rest of World

By: Kinling Lo

3 October 2025 at 05:00

A Chinese city that failed to attract people has become a sandbox for machines. Ordos, a coal-rich northern Chinese city that never took off after prices crashed in 2012, has...

TO GO WITH AFP STORY 'China-economy-society-property,FEATURE' by Allison JacksonA driver approaches an intersection in Kangbashi, a district on the outskirts of Ordos, in China's Inner Mongolia on April 20, 2011. Kangbashi district offers residents "new modern" living, with tree-lined streets, shiny apartment buildings, vast parklands, restaurants and even a motor racing track. But seven years after construction workers broke ground on the arid plateau, most of the apartments appear empty and the wide streets are almost deserted -- earning Kangbashi the tag of "ghost city". AFP PHOTO/Frederic J. BROWN (Photo credit should read FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

Livestream shopping stars face off against trolls, hagglers, and AI rivals

Rest of World

By: Linda Yulisman

2 October 2025 at 05:00

Zuhrotul Aprilia enjoys rambling on for hours about kitchenware from a studio in the Indonesian port city of Surabaya. Most days, she turns on her iPad and peddles pots and...

AI is reshaping childhood in China

Rest of World

By: Viola Zhou

1 October 2025 at 05:00

The runaway success of Chinese artificial intelligence models such as DeepSeek and Qwen has spurred every industry, from health care to agriculture to education, to integrate AI. Adoption of AI...

These leading Syrian apps are helping rebuild the country after Assad

Rest of World

By: Rest of World

30 September 2025 at 11:31

This story is adapted from writer Emily Wither’s recent Rest of World feature, Syria’s quest to build its own Silicon Valley. For the first time in a long time, Syrian...

People working on laptops inside Karma Cafe in the Abu Rummaneh area of Damascus.

China charges ahead as South Korea’s battery giants lose their spark

Rest of World

By: Ananya Bhattacharya

30 September 2025 at 05:00

China’s battery giants have pulled the plug on South Korea’s dominance in powering electric vehicles. South Korea’s three top EV battery makers — LG Energy Solution, SK On, and Samsung...

The UAE’s University of AI is a pipeline for top tech talent

Rest of World

By: Amar Diwakar

29 September 2025 at 05:00

In the fierce global war over workers skilled in artificial intelligence, the United Arab Emirates is luring researchers with a custom-built AI university that offers what many scientists dream of:...

China won the electric car race. Up next: freight trucks

Rest of World

By: Ananya Bhattacharya

26 September 2025 at 05:00

China flooded the world with electric cars. Its next target is freight trucks. BYD, the Chinese automaker that overtook Tesla in sales of electric cars last year, now ships electric...

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