By Sauradeep Bag

The central question is no longer whether sovereign digital money will emerge but what institutional form it will take, who will govern it, and whose economic interests it will serve.

By Prateek Tripathi

Though the field of quantum computing is not mature enough to provide remarkable practical applications at the moment, recent developments serve to exemplify the asymmetric nature of quantum technology development and how multiple incremental advancements can potentially lead to overall progress.

By Amoha Basrur and Pranoy Jainendran

With applications already spanning the automotive, aerospace, and data-centre sectors, spintronics has become a strategic priority for countries with the manufacturing capacity to compete for it, driving targeted R&D funding, national roadmaps, and industry partnerships aimed at securing technological leadership and supply chain resilience.

By Siddharth Yadav

Global corporate AI investment reached US$581.7 billion in 2025, more than double the previous year’s total, with most of it flowing to the economies that already dominate research and hardware. Economies with nascent domestic digital infrastructure, investment vehicles, research ecosystems, and governance frameworks risk being marginalized by the AI-driven future.

By Gopalika Arora

The retrenchment of finance is not merely a result of a temporary slowdown in climate finance commitments by the developed countries. It may also signal a deeper restructuring of the climate finance architecture driven by changing institutional priorities within the multilateral system that was expected to anchor the transition.

By Parul Bakshi and Lydia Powell

Over the past decade, three structural shifts have been reordering global energy trade, encompassing not only traditional oil and gas flows but also the rapidly growing cross-border trade in electricity and clean energy goods.

By Piyush Verma

For the Global South, the stakes are particularly high: the energy transition could unlock industrialization, resilience, and strategic bargaining power, but it could also reproduce older patterns of dependency through new technologies, standards, minerals, and financial asymmetries.

By Andreas Kuehn and Cauvery Ganapathy

While the integration of AI offers benefits for the optimization of energy systems through grid management, renewable energy integration, predictive maintenance, and accurate forecasting of alternative forms of energy, its energy-intensive nature could also negatively impact the countries and ecosystems seeking to adopt it.

By Medha Prasanna

The oil age will not end because the world runs out of oil, but because oil reserves stop being worth pumping. The UAE has moved fast, not as just a knee-jerk reaction to the conflict in the region, but as a strategic divergence.

By Pietro Zecca

Pursued only through scattered pilot projects, industrial decarbonization stays fragmented and slow. Organized as clusters, it becomes more practical and politically durable, connecting climate finance to visible assets and bridging decarbonization with development.

By Uma Vatsa and Shailesh Mishra

The AI industry is making large, long-lived bets on future demand, even as the technology itself is becoming more efficient. If AI systems become cheaper to run, more efficient to train, or less dependent on massively centralized compute, some of today’s infrastructure may prove oversized, poorly located, or economically fragile.

By Sarah Salah

As the IAA continues to undergo amendments, its ultimate success will hinge on careful calibration. The EU will need to preserve channels for strategic foreign investment, especially in capital-intensive sectors where domestic capacity alone may fall short. If the Act is overly complex or restrictive, it risks deterring the very investment it seeks to shape.

By Vishal Manve

India’s nuclear future is increasingly unfolding along two parallel tracks, one rooted in indigenous strategic capability and the other in internationally integrated commercial innovation. For Washington, understanding and engaging both will be central to the next phase of U.S.–India civil nuclear cooperation.

By Piyush Verma

The conflict in West Asia was not South Asia's war. But South Asia — and particularly the smaller South Asian states such as Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan — are paying the price in fuel queues, kitchen economies, and fiscal wounds that will take years to heal.

By Dhruva Jaishankar and Piyush Verma

A CTIP could deliver relatively quick wins by supporting joint manufacturing, standards cooperation, and market access to meet Europe’s diversification needs, while deepening India’s role as a global clean energy manufacturing hub. 

By Parul Bakshi and Samriddhi Vij

While the current crisis in the Middle East may not be permanent, Asia’s dependency on Middle Eastern crude is, necessitating a deeper examination of the structure and extent of this vulnerability.

By Cauvery Ganapathy

Disruptions triggered by the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz have interrupted global efforts at industrial reshoring, data center-led digitization, electrification, and the reinforcement of defense production lines, while also posing risks to global food security.

By Mannat Jaspal

The only real winners will be those that draw lessons from the crisis and move quickly to build robust energy security frameworks — one that integrate securitization, resilience, and transition planning to safeguard the present and insulate the future.

By Cauvery Ganapathy

In Venezuela’s case, as was the case with Iraq, it is the systematic domestic mismanagement of its resources coupled with inequities of political agency that diminished the value of its natural wealth. American engagement in Venezuela’s oil sector may soon demonstrate, like it did in the United States’ Iraqi sojourn, how deep-rooted these structural fractures are.

By Caroline Arkalji and Telmen Altanshagai

In the coming decades, green steel will shape whether heavy industry can remain both competitive and environmentally-aligned. The remaining question is whether policy frameworks, financing mechanisms, and workforce strategies can move at the same pace.

By Vishal Manve

India has largely resolved the political signaling problem around nuclear energy. The harder phase now begins: building the human capital, regulatory resilience, and industrial depth necessary to sustain multi-decade deployment.

By Sarah Salah

There is no question that Greenland holds substantial mineral wealth. Most mining exploration sites in Greenland are located along the coast, making port infrastructure essential for transporting heavy equipment and extracted materials. Yet declining sea levels threaten the long-term viability of deep-water ports built today, potentially rendering them too shallow within decades.

By Mannat Jaspal, Parul Bakshi, Cauvery Ganapathy, Lydia Powell, and Piyush Verma

As we enter 2026, climate and energy policies are being shaped not only by decarbonization imperatives. Geopolitical upheaval, technological competition, economic transformation, supply chain resilience, and national security concerns are exerting influence over the future of energy and climate policies worldwide.

By Piyush Verma

India’s latest Union Budget marks a subtle but important shift in how the country is framing its energy priorities. Rather than centering the narrative solely on clean energy targets or renewable capacity additions and relevant policy support, the Budget signals a broader and more mature emphasis on energy security.

By Holly Stevens and Siddharth Sharma

As demand for electric vehicles, battery storage, clean energy systems, and advanced technologies continues to accelerate, Australia’s resource base and mining history, Canada’s resource base as well as its mining and industrial capabilities, and India’s market scale and commitment to value-added manufacturing could support diversification across multiple stages of the value chain.

By Ashwini Thakre and Piyush Verma

No single country can efficiently develop the entire critical minerals value chain on its own, particularly for rare earths and battery materials. Cooperation among the United States, Australia, Japan, and other Indo-Pacific economies reflects a growing recognition that resilience lies not in isolation, but in diversified and trusted networks.

By Caroline Arkalji

For utilities and developers, a robust U.S. battery-storage industry would reduce dependence on overseas suppliers, cut logistical and tariff-related costs, and accelerate project deployment. If the United States seizes this moment, it can position itself as a global leader in grid-scale battery manufacturing and deliver a more reliable, competitive, and secure energy system for the decades ahead.

By Ashwini Thakre and Piyush Verma

China’s diplomatic control over sector may become the very trigger that unwinds its dominance. By weaponizing concentration, Beijing accelerated diversification efforts that many democracies had treated as optional. The shock exposed the liabilities of a system built on single-country dependence and encouraged a coordinated wave of investment across the United States, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Australia.

By Piyush Verma

Strengthening the EU-India energy partnership would unlock significant economic opportunities for both regions, fostering innovation, job creation, and strengthening security. How India and the EU align their energy strategies through their trade agreement will have far-reaching consequences for the world’s future.

By Medha Prasanna

Joint innovation in water-efficient cooling, collaborative investment in low-carbon hyperscale campuses, and harmonized approaches to land and community engagement could make the U.S.–India partnership a global benchmark in data infrastructure.