Scarcity is driving AI innovation outside Silicon Valley

4 June 2026 at 05:00

For years, the assumption around artificial intelligence infrastructure was that serious compute would be built in places where hyperscale cloud, developer density, and capital were already concentrated: Silicon Valley, Seattle,...

China is training a robot future — one folded shirt at a time

Rest of World

By: Viola Zhou

3 June 2026 at 05:00

Daniel Wang came home to his apartment in Beijing and saw a humanoid robot waiting for him. He opened the door, and the robot got to work. The robot, developed...

A robot performs house chores at the Hisense booth at the SNEIC expo center in Shanghai, China, on March 12, 2026.

EVs are getting more affordable worldwide — except in the U.S.

Rest of World

By: Ananya Bhattacharya

2 June 2026 at 05:00

Electric cars became more affordable across much of the world in 2025 — except the U.S. One in four cars sold globally is now electric. Penetration in the U.S., however,...

India’s AI deal with the UAE challenges U.S. cloud dominance

Rest of World

By: Indranil Ghosh

1 June 2026 at 05:00

India is partnering with the United Arab Emirates to ease the grip of Amazon, Microsoft, and Google on artificial intelligence computing. G42, backed by Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala,...

Pope’s encyclical raises questions on who gets to shape AI

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran

29 May 2026 at 08:00

On Monday, Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, titled Magnifica Humanitas, or magnificent humanity. The 83-page letter is about “safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence,”...

Pope Leo XIV during his weekly general audience in the Vatican on May 27, 2026.

China’s tech rise is creating a new kind of tourism

Rest of World

By: Kinling Lo

28 May 2026 at 05:00

For decades, the pilgrimage route for ambitious tech founders, investors, and engineers led to Silicon Valley. Now, a growing number of them are flying to Shanghai, Hangzhou, or Shenzhen instead....

U.S. companies have an AI problem. Indian IT wants to be the solution

Rest of World

By: Itika Sharma Punit

27 May 2026 at 05:00

America’s AI gold rush is staring at a haunting challenge as most U.S. companies struggle to see real-world benefits. India’s $300 billion IT industry is moving to capture the “deployment...

U.S. versus China: Can open-source beat OpenAI?

Rest of World

By: Rest of World Staff

26 May 2026 at 00:24

Join Jules Polonetsky, Chief Executive Officer, Future of Privacy Forum, in conversation with Itika Sharma Punit, Deputy Editor, Rest of World on April 17, 2026

The agentic divide: Why “good enough” AI isn’t enough to survive the new economy

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran

26 May 2026 at 05:00

Since OpenClaw burst onto the scene as Clawdbot last November, individuals and businesses have embraced artificial intelligence agents to write code, send emails, run a shop, and more. AI agents...

AI is minting new billionaires, and workers want their share

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran and John Popko

22 May 2026 at 09:48

Samsung Electronics narrowly averted a walkout by nearly 48,000 workers this week, after executives agreed to a tentative deal over bonus payments. But the labor union’s demand for a bigger...

What AI race? China and U.S. AI worlds are tightly connected

Rest of World

By: Viola Zhou

22 May 2026 at 08:00

The tech race between the U.S. and China seems to heat up daily. Headlines center on how America seeks to lead global AI with its capital and chips, while China...

Pushing back from Big Tech: Africa’s hard road to AI sovereignty

Rest of World

By: Ananya Bhattacharya

21 May 2026 at 05:00

Africa’s four biggest tech economies have each drafted artificial intelligence strategies admitting they depend too heavily on Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Meta for infrastructure and want more control over the...

The UAE’s OPEC exit frees up oil wealth as it bets big on AI

Rest of World

By: Indranil Ghosh

20 May 2026 at 05:00

The United Arab Emirates quit the world’s most powerful oil cartel on May 1, freeing billions in oil revenue while placing its biggest bet yet on artificial intelligence. The Organization...

Silicon Valley keeps misreading China’s role in tech

Rest of World

By: Lex Zhao

19 May 2026 at 05:00

When Donald Trump arrived in Beijing last week for his first state visit to China since 2017, he was joined by the CEOs of Tesla, Apple, Nvidia, Micron, Qualcomm, and...

The Filipino virtual assistants behind LinkedIn’s “thought leadership” content mill

Rest of World

By: Michael Beltran

18 May 2026 at 05:00

In the spring of 2025, the CEO of a European childcare startup posted a brief write-up about the qualities of a good leader on their LinkedIn page. Dozens of executives...

India’s VCs are beating American investors at home

Rest of World

By: Itika Sharma Punit

15 May 2026 at 08:00

As a tech journalist in Bengaluru, I spent much of the early 2010s writing about Indian startups raising money from Silicon Valley investors. Every other month, I would find myself...

Can we really keep kids safe online?

Rest of World

By: Itika Sharma Punit

14 May 2026 at 05:00

Governments around the world are rushing to regulate children’s access to social media. From Australia’s social media ban for minors to growing concerns around artificial intelligence, predators, privacy, and screen...

What’s at stake for tech at the Trump-Xi meeting

Rest of World

By: Viola Zhou and Kinling Lo

13 May 2026 at 05:00

U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are scheduled to meet in Beijing this week amid the urgent geopolitical tensions surrounding the war in Iran and the status...

Taiwan’s chips power the global economy. China holds the leverage

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran

12 May 2026 at 05:00

In recent years, there have been several reminders of how interconnected the global economy is, and how fragile supply chains are. The shutdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic led to big...

The Chinese whiz kids of Silicon Valley

Rest of World

By: Viola Zhou

11 May 2026 at 05:00

Last fall, I moved into Mark Zuckerberg’s old house. A pale blue ranch home dubbed the Facebook House, it was perched in the hills of Los Altos, an affluent enclave...

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