I went to China to see a different AI future. It looked familiar

28 August 2026 at 08:00

Gordon Saft is the Publisher of Rest of World. Last week, he returned to New York from a trip to China with a delegation of leaders from across media, technology,...

India’s data center boom is leaving the people it displaces with nothing

Rest of World

By: Ananya Bhattacharya

27 August 2026 at 05:00

When Osama Manzar started the nonprofit Digital Empowerment Foundation in 2002, just 1.2% of India’s population was online. Now, more than 70% is. But Manzar’s mission statement — helping poor...

Why the global push to break free from Big Tech keeps falling short

Rest of World

By: Cecilia Rikap

26 August 2026 at 05:00

In mid-2024, a cybersecurity partner’s mistake led to a global Microsoft Windows outage. It affected 8.5 million Windows devices. Although this represents less than 1% of all Windows machines, it...

America’s immigration policy is driving away future AI leaders

Rest of World

By: Lex Zhao

25 August 2026 at 05:00

The Trump administration has proposed a new fee for H-1B visas, while weighing a $100,000 fee on Optional Practical Training, the program that allows international graduates to work in the...

The UAE is fighting AI hackers with AI of its own

Rest of World

By: Divsha Bhat

24 August 2026 at 05:00

Missiles crossed the Gulf in February, and hackers armed with artificial intelligence followed. The United Arab Emirates has detected and contained coordinated cyberattacks on the aviation, energy, and education sectors...

A dumpling shop becomes a poster child of AI adoption in China

Rest of World

By: Viola Zhou

21 August 2026 at 08:00

If you have an AI agent, you can tell it to build a website, make a slideshow, or get you a table at a popular dumpling shop in Beijing. The...

“It’s laughable”: Global AI experts challenge Zuckerberg’s “AI for everyone”

Rest of World

By: Ananya Bhattacharya

20 August 2026 at 05:00

On August 10, Mark Zuckerberg published a letter titled “The Future for Everyone,” a manifesto laying out his vision for how superintelligence could improve people’s lives, expand human capability, and...

Chinese carmakers now sell one EV abroad for every two at home

Rest of World

By: Indranil Ghosh

18 August 2026 at 05:00

Chinese electric-vehicle makers have lost buyers at home and found new ones in Brazil, Thailand, and the Gulf. Some 540,000 EVs left China in July, a monthly record, while about...

Ban on Chinese robots leaves U.S. startups stranded

Rest of World

By: Viola Zhou

17 August 2026 at 05:00

The U.S. government is forcing a rapid onshoring of robotics through a sweeping ban on foreign-made robots, even before an American supply chain exists, putting at risk the very robotics...

Three Unitree G1 humanoid robots are pictured at robotics company Unitree's first retail store in Beijing.

The online shopping trend where you buy nothing

Rest of World

By: Itika Sharma Punit

14 August 2026 at 08:00

This week, I placed orders for a $44,860 Patek Philippe hand-engraved watch, a $12,500 Hermès handbag, a $9,800 Tiffany diamond ring, and a $7,350 Cartier Love bracelet in yellow gold....

Mozilla’s CTO thinks AI should be built like the internet

Rest of World

By: Itika Sharma Punit

13 August 2026 at 05:00

For decades, Mozilla has been one of the strongest advocates for an open internet. Today, as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly central to how businesses and governments operate, the organization is...

Why we should all be worried about AI in elections

Rest of World

By: Lisa Poggiali and Samson Itodo

12 August 2026 at 05:00

Last month, all 193 United Nations member states gathered in Geneva for the inaugural Global Dialogue on AI Governance. For two days they debated how the world should govern AI,...

How one VC burns through hundreds of millions of tokens a day to find the next unicorn

Rest of World

By: Ananya Bhattacharya

11 August 2026 at 05:00

Artificial intelligence is forcing venture capitalists to rethink how they invest. For decades, investors backed startups by judging founding teams, products, and markets. But as AI advances at breakneck speed,...

Beijing is forcing a mass breakup with AI lovers

Rest of World

By: Kinling Lo

10 August 2026 at 05:00

For a week in July, 21-year-old college student Bagel Su cried every day as she counted down to the loss of her boyfriend. The breakup was not caused by betrayal...

Arizona wants Taiwan’s investors to think beyond chips

Rest of World

By: Kinling Lo

7 August 2026 at 08:00

In July, I sat among roughly 100 people in a packed conference room in Taipei as a speaker highlighted the industrial parks and tax rates of an American city nearly...

The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) fabrication plant in Phoenix, Arizona.

The offline messaging apps challenging internet shutdowns

Rest of World

By: Ananya Bhattacharya

6 August 2026 at 05:00

Governments that deploy internet shutdowns to thwart protesters have struggled to clamp down on offline messaging apps. India’s recent response to Jack Dorsey’s Bitchat suggests that battle is entering a...

Demonstrators take part in a protest rally organised by the Cockroach Janta Party and various Left student organisations against the NEET paper leak, demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in Kolkata, India. (Photo by Avijit Ghosh/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Growth without work: The human cost of the AI revolution

Rest of World

By: Jibu Elias

5 August 2026 at 05:00

At the turn of the millennium, India became the global hub for medical transcription. With fiber optic cables laid in the 1990s, American hospitals found it cheap and efficient to...

An archival photo of a computer lab in the Herbert V. Manning Library on the campus of Claflin University

The global grassroots gatherings trying to humanize the AI boom

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran

4 August 2026 at 05:00

On a recent weekend afternoon in San Francisco, about 20 people sat in a loose circle in an empty office. There was a high school student, a few undergraduates and...

Why Silicon Valley is divided over China’s powerful, cheap AI models

Rest of World

By: Viola Zhou

3 August 2026 at 05:00

The surge of powerful Chinese open-weight AI models has sparked a feud in Silicon Valley and Washington over whether they are threats to U.S. national security or essential parts of...

Can we train AI to choose safety over speed?

Rest of World

By: Ananya Bhattacharya

31 July 2026 at 08:00

As July monsoon rains flood the Mumbai streets around my home, quick-commerce platforms are using advanced weather algorithms to capture surging customer demand. While tech companies capitalize on the storms,...

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