A twice-monthly systems read of the continent — twelve domains, one signal. Edition 01 June 2026 · covering ~16 May–18 June 2026 ~9 min read Subscriber edition How to read this. We track the African continent as one system across twelve domains — the big moving parts of development, from money and minerals…
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An AI-ecosystem-model reading of today’s news Over the past few months, we’ve built something we call the AI ecosystem model, a map of how one jolt in the chain that makes artificial intelligence possible travels outward to everything else: the minerals, the chips, the data centers, the power grid, the…
Comments closedWhy studying abroad is infrastructure, not a vacation. This is the eighth post in a series on globalization, and the through-line has been simple. Nothing important gets built by one country alone. A Short History of Human Interdependence traced how far back that dependence runs. The Economics of Why explained why two countries both…
Comments closedEveryone’s still guessing A quick note before we start: this one runs a little longer than usual. I’d planned to come at this subject in smaller pieces over the next few weeks, but the news got ahead of me, so I’m covering the whole topic in one piece now, and…
Comments closedWhy a richer developing world is in everyone’s interest In 1990, about 2.3 billion people lived in extreme poverty. By 2025 that figure had fallen to roughly 830 million (World Bank, 2025), even as the world added more than two and a half billion people along the way (UN World…
Comments closedHow AI turns one question into a systems view A small business owner asks the model whether she should open a second café. The answer comes back with the cash-flow math, yes. But also with the lease timing, the staffing lead time, the risk that two locations split her customers…
Comments closedOr: what we actually mean when we say “AI” in 2026. In November 2022, ChatGPT reached one hundred million users in two months, faster than any product in history. Today, that chatbot is the simplest thing AI does. When most people picture AI, they picture a chat window: type a…
Comments closedThe architecture of risk and reward. In 2015, Beijing published a document called Made in China 2025. It named ten industries: advanced manufacturing, aerospace, biotech, new-energy vehicles, AI hardware, robotics, and several others. It set targets, timelines, and financing. It coordinated ministries, state-owned enterprises, banks, universities, and provincial governments around…
Comments closedIntroduction to a new series on AI and its ecosystem I mentioned in a recent note that I was working on a new series on the AI ecosystem. This is the first post. It is an introduction: what the series is, what it is not, and why it is worth…
Comments closedA Boeing 787, an ore-testing lab, and the chemistry behind half your dinner. Three things held up by villages of expertise no country could replicate — and what happens when one thread breaks. Bernard Philippe Markowicz May 16, 2026 In March 2021, a fire broke out in a single building…
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