Beyond Oil: Google’s Big Bet On Saudi Arabia’s IT Future
November 3rd, 2024
Via the Middle East Institute, a look at Google’s big bet on Saudi Arabia’s AI future: In a landmark move signaling the growing importance of the Middle East in the global tech landscape, Google has entered into a strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund. Google Cloud and PIF announced the agreement, […]
Read more »Greenland: Facing One of History’s Great Resources Rushes … and Curses
November 3rd, 2024
Via The Economist, a look at Greenland, which sits on an astounding number of critical minerals: A billion years ago, as one tectonic plate ripped apart from another, two chambers of magma were sealed off beneath what would later become Greenland. As thousands of years passed, the magma cooled, each layer crystallising under rarefied conditions. Today […]
Read more »Mexican Wave: Why The New Hollywood Is South Of The Border
November 2nd, 2024
Via The Economist, a look at the growth of Mexican drama: Churubusco Studios, a rambling complex in Mexico City, has been in business since 1945; in that time it has overseen some 3,000 movies and more telenovelas than anyone can remember. Today, on one of its sound stages, sits something from the future: a curving, luminous wall of […]
Read more »America’s “One Somalia” Policy is a Gift to China
November 1st, 2024
Via National Interest, commentary on how the U.S. State Department’s futile and ossified approach to Somaliland advances Beijing’s objectives in the Horn of Africa: On December 13, 2018, National Security Advisor John Bolton announced the Trump administration’s new Africa strategy. “Great power competitors, namely China and Russia, are rapidly expanding their financial and political influence […]
Read more »Dig, Baby, Dig: China Tightens Its Grip On The World’s Minerals
November 1st, 2024
Courtesy of The Economist, a look at how China is tightening its grip on the world’s minerals: To decarbonise the global economy and build the data centres needed for ever smarter artificial-intelligence models, the world will need lots of minerals. China wants first dibs. Last year its companies ploughed roughly $16bn into mines overseas, not including minority […]
Read more »Diamond-Market Crash Drives Seismic Political Shift in Botswana
November 1st, 2024
Via Bloomberg, a report on a dramatic election result in Botswana: An opposition coalition emerged as the shock winner of Botswana’s parliamentary elections, the first time power has changed hands in the diamond-dependent southern African nation since independence almost six decades ago. Duma Boko, a Harvard-educated human rights lawyer, is set to succeed Mokgweetsi Masisi […]
Read more »Focusing primarily on The New Seven Sisters - the largely state owned petroleum companies from the emerging world that have become key players in the oil & gas industry as identified by Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent for The Financial Times - but spanning other nascent opportunities around the globe that may hold potential in the years ahead, Wildcats & Black Sheep is a place for the adventurous to contemplate & evaluate the emerging markets of tomorrow.