By Caroline Arkalji and Piyush Verma
Green iron could become an important energy security and industrial competitiveness issue. Reducing dependence on imported coal, building domestic clean industrial capacity, and preparing for future export markets could all strengthen India’s long-term position.
By Siddharth Yadav
The ability of attackers using AI systems to mount an autonomous attack is spreading. The systems best able to defend against one, including the two OpenAI models in this test, are either unreleased or restricted to organizations with advance approval. That gap necessitates treating open models that anyone can download and run as the foundation of cyber defense, rather than a fallback.
By Ammar Nainar
In the long run, India will continue to deepen defense cooperation with a select group of West Asian and Mediterranean countries in partial response to developments such as the Mecca Agreement.
By Dylan Morgan
While the CCP may view Cheng as an opportunity to revive engagement, Taiwan’s political realities continue to place limits on how far she can move towards accommodating Beijing. Her current efforts to moderate her platform and temper pushback may be able to help her make inroads with a broader audience.
By Andreas Kuehn and Tara Chawla
The AI buildout is not simply a race for more advanced accelerators, but an infrastructure-centered contest to turn technology, energy, and capital into usable computing capacity. The decisive measure will not be announced spending or planned capacity, but how quickly those commitments become reliable, operational computing capacity.
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 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 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 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.
Observer Research Foundation America, 1100 17th St. NW, Suite 501, Washington DC 20036 USA
