HuggingFace is the leading platform where the world’s open-source models are launched. Chinese and American open-source AI models are compared to each other directly in terms of total downloads and usage.  Tiezhen Wang, who just left Hugging Face this month after being the head of its APAC ecosystem for 3.5 years, has worked first hand […]

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 layer” to execute the messy, unglamorous work needed to make artificial intelligence actually profitable.  After decades of running technology systems for global banks, retailers, airlines, […]

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 are forecast to become ubiquitous in the coming years, raising concerns about agentic inequality, and its economic consequences for companies, countries, and people. AI agents […]

Samsung’s labor deal highlights a global movement of workers demanding a fair share of record AI-driven profits. From Kenyan data annotators to Hollywood actors, laborers across the supply chain are challenging the surge in “AI billionaires” as automation continues to drive widespread job cuts. The conflict has sparked broader debates on “citizen’s dividends” to ensure […]

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 tries to catch up through government subsidies and engineering ingenuity. But look closer, and you find two ecosystems that are deeply intertwined — in talent, […]

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 terms.  Nigeria, Egypt, and Kenya have released draft AI policies since January 2025 that identify dependence on U.S. tech companies as a threat to security […]

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 of the Petroleum Exporting Countries had capped UAE oil production at 3.2 million barrels a day for a country that can pump 4.8 million. That […]

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 others. Their presence went against the rhetoric coming out of Washington and Silicon Valley of deteriorating U.S.-China relations. Instead, these CEOs appeared to convey that […]

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 responded with comments like “Beautifully said,” “Leadership isn’t about titles. It’s about kindness,” and “Leadership is about action, influence, and integrity, not titles.” LinkedIn is […]

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 looking up a new American venture capital firm that was leading a multimillion-dollar funding round in a startup in Bengaluru or Delhi. At the time, […]