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China is winning the clean energy race
As the world speeds up the transition to renewables and away from fossil fuels, China is betting bigger than anyone else on the energy technologies that will power the world for decades to come. Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben joins Ian Bremmer on GZERO World to talk about Beijing’s wholehearted embrace of clean energy compared to the US. It’s not just that they’re manufacturing solar panels or putting up wind farms, McKibben says, they’re investing in a technology that will transform the global economy.
Energy demand is rising, driven in large part by data centers that power AI, and McKibben argues that the only way to meet that demand is with cheap, clean energy. While it’s true China still burns large amounts of coal, increasingly it’s used as a second or third tier power source because of the cost compared to solar and wind. China’s investment in renewable energy gives them a competitive edge in technologies that will reshape the balance of power—literally and figuratively.
“China become the world's first electro state,” McKibben says, “They're learning how to use that flood of cheap clean energy to run everything around them.”
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔). GZERO World with Ian Bremmer airs on US public television weekly - check local listings.
AI is already discovering new cures
As part of a wide-ranging conversation on the GZERO World podcast, oncologist and Pulitzer prize-winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee walks Ian Bremmer through one of the most groundbreaking uses of AI in medicine today: generative drug discovery. It’s not just about speeding up research—it’s about creating entirely new molecules that no human has ever seen.
Using AI, researchers can now analyze the shape of a dysfunctional protein—like one found in a cancer or autoimmune cell—and generate chemical compounds that could bind to and modify its behavior. “This is true generative chemistry,” Mukherjee says. “Every time we do this in collaboration with a machine, the machine learns it, and it learns it forever.”
The process is like solving a puzzle with a million possible pieces. With each failure, the AI learns more, narrowing down candidates until it finds a match. It’s already produced new antibiotics with never-before-seen structures—and Mukherjee believes this is just the beginning of a medical revolution.
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔). GZERO World with Ian Bremmer airs on US public television weekly - check local listings.
How AI will revolutionize medicine with Siddhartha Mukherjee
Listen: Nearly 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women in the US will be diagnosed with cancer, and 1,700 people die from it every day. Disparities persist—Black women are 40% more likely to die of breast cancer than white women—and treatment costs remain crushing for many.
On the latest episode of the GZERO World podcast, Ian Bremmer talks with world-renowned cancer researcher and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee about the future of medicine—and why artificial intelligence might finally tip the scales in the decades-long war on cancer.
Cancer remains the second leading cause of death in the US, killing nearly 1,700 people every day. But Mukherjee says AI is already reshaping the field, from radiology and diagnostics to identifying new carcinogens and designing entirely new cancer drugs. “Every time we do this in collaboration with a machine,” he explains, “the machine learns it, and it learns it forever.”
In a wide-ranging conversation, Mukherjee breaks down three major areas where AI is advancing medicine: patient care, data mining, and generative drug development. He also weighs in on early cancer detection, how inflammation may hold the key to understanding new carcinogens, and why this moment may be the most hopeful in half a century of cancer research.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published
Graph of new college graduate unemployment compared to the national average, with new graduate unemployment surpassing the national average for the first time in 2022, when ChatGPT was released and the AI revolution began.
Is AI why college grads can’t find jobs?
You can’t step outside these days without hearing someone talking about AI’s impending slaughter of white-collar jobs. So far, the evidence that AI is shifting the broader labor market is thin, but among new college graduates, the story looks different – unemployment is rising faster for them than for the workforce overall.
Since we opened the Pandora’s Box of chatbots, new grads have faced higher unemployment than the national average for the first time in decades. Which raises the question: are they the canaries in the coal mine that AI-driven job disruption has begun?
“It just seems like there’s not any more entry-level roles,” reports James Kettle, a 25-year-old Columbia University graduate who’s been on the job hunt since May. His experience is echoed in a new Stanford study, which found hiring in AI-exposed occupations for early-career workers is down 13%.
Even if we can’t be certain AI is totally to blame for stealing young people’s existing jobs (yet), it’s making it harder for them to get hired in the first place. Delia Thompson, a 23-year-old University of Virginia graduate who’s been on the hunt for seven months, describes the job process today as “shouting into the void,” as she and other candidates send thousands of AI-assisted resumes through LinkedIn, only for companies to use their own algorithms to sift through the pile – a loop of bots talking to bots. “It makes it feel like a total lottery,” says Thompson.
This is reshaping how many young people are viewing AI overall. As something that gives the illusion of abundance – more productivity, more swipes on dating apps, more options – while making it more difficult to hear the signal through the noise. “AI is making it much harder for everyone,” says Kettle. “[Dating apps] make it harder to find a girlfriend, AI makes it harder to find a job… And for what? For it to just replace those jobs?”
Most of the young people I interviewed predicted that AI would only end up benefiting a small number of people, further consolidating wealth and costing jobs. “No one really wants to be associated with AI,” Kettle continued, “besides shareholders who want to lower costs and to be seen as cool.”
This isn’t this generation’s first rodeo. They have already been the guinea pigs for one revolutionary new technology: social media. They had Facebook in elementary school, Instagram in middle school, and were addicted to them long before the first op-eds hit the presses about how they might rewire a developing brain. It has created a generation of early tech adopters, but also one that’s keenly aware of its pitfalls and ulterior motives.
“God forbid Meta reaches AGI first and the whole world becomes Instagram,” bemoaned Kettle.
Economic shocks have compounded the mistrust. Many graduates grew up in households battered by the Great Recession, were told college was the only way forward, and then took on debt for degrees that played out mostly on Zoom. Now they’re entering a labor market that’s the toughest it’s been for college-educated workers in 25 years – and AI will only make it worse.
“Everything that was sold as the golden ticket turned out to be a nightmare,” says Sam Angel, who has been looking for a job since he graduated from Columbia University last year. “What really underlies this whole thing is just an underlying sense of powerlessness,” Angel told me.
That sense of being shut out is driving political volatility. Forty-six percent of young voters voted for Trump in 2024, up from 36% in 2020 – with the majority citing pocketbook issues. But those gains for Trump are quickly disappearing: his approval among 18–29 year olds has collapsed 44 points, with 72% now disapproving. This generation wanted predictability, and instead got more layoffs – played live on TikTok.
That same anger was evident in New York City when the tagline “billionaires shouldn’t exist” helped win Zohran Mamdani the Democratic primary. Young voters didn’t hear socialism – they heard someone saying that the richer shouldn’t keep getting richer as the middle hollows out.
“People like me are getting demoralized,” Kettle said. “I want to get married and have a kid, but I look at the price of childcare, the price of housing, the price of healthcare. It doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen.”
Today’s graduates don’t feel unlucky, they feel disillusioned. Their politics are volatile, and increasingly shaped by a sense that each “unprecedented” disruption – from the pandemic to AI – keeps breaking the promises made to them about their agency over their future.
The Caryn influencer artificial intelligence AI page is seen in this illustration photo taken in Warsaw, Poland on 05 December, 2023.
The geopolitics of on-device AI
Since its inception, generative AI such as ChatGPT has run primarily in the cloud: large data centers run by large companies. In that home, AI is reliant on electricity-hungry computers, robust internet connections, and centralized data. But now AI is beginning to move directly onto devices themselves, encouraged by advances in AI models, user-friendly tools, and ideological factors. This transformation has broad implications for the geopolitics of AI.
Whether for corporate or personal use, on-device AI is fundamentally different from cloud-based AI. When running on your own device, AI no longer requires racks of electricity-hungry computers, a reliable internet connection, or particularly custom hardware to operate. From a user’s point of view, one can more safely and privately give on-device AI access to all data on the device — including messages, photos, and real-time location — without risking privacy leakages. The on-device AI could control apps on the user’s behalf, and their apps could also efficiently use the on-device AI. All for free, with no usage limits.
Of course, the largest and most advanced AI models may never fit on a standard laptop; scientific labs might always need cloud-based AI. But as laptops and mobile devices continue to improve — and AI models continue to be miniaturized — an ever-higher percent of AI use cases will become viable on-device.
Geopolitically, on-device AI will scramble much of the current calculus.
As AI moves from clouds to devices, national AI infrastructure may play a less central role. There are already some reports of AI overcapacity in China; President Xi has publicly warned about it. Conversely, the global south might have an opportunity to leapfrog: just as some nations skipped landline internet and went directly to mobile connections, so too may developing countries skip expensive AI data centers and simply rely on AI-capable devices.
Though cloud operators may matter less, device creators will matter more. Globally, America is currently overrepresented, with Apple, Google, Microsoft, HP, and a range of other relevant device creators. China has historically been less relevant: only Xiaomi commands international attention, with less than 12% of the global mobile market. That said, a variety of companies are building next-gen AI devices. If any get traction (with its AI perhaps powered by connected phones), the countries that invent winning AI devices will stake their claim to global AI leadership.
Most countries are not competing for global AI device leadership, though, and most AI devices will likely come from only a few places. For middle powers looking to exercise national agency, new approaches are likely to emerge.
One possibility could grow out of system prompts: short, written instructions given to AI models to guide their behavior and tone. All AIs use system prompts; they are currently written by the companies that make the AIs. Perhaps there might be national system prompts in the future — in the same way that every smart device currently follows the time zone settings of the user’s current location, one could also imagine every AI device following a system prompt settings of the user’s current location.
Imagine, for example, that you visit a foreign country. Now — unless you override the default system prompt, as you can today for the time zone — your on-device AI might skew its default advice to follow local cultural norms and values, thanks to a simple extra section of text loaded into its invisible system prompt. Governments could write those short statements as distillations of national norms and values, and provide them to major on-device-AI makers in a standardized format.
On a social level, the makers of on-device AI have different incentives than the makers of cloud-based AI. In particular, cloud-based AI providers may be tuning their systems to encourage users down rabbit holes of higher usage, following the same financial incentives as social media providers. Conversely, on-device AI is incentivized to add more value to the customer’s purchase of the device, but the device maker isn't likely to earn extra revenue for every hour of incremental usage. So there’s grounds for cautious optimism: on-device AI may be better aligned with the user’s best self, rather than their most-frequently-using self.
The full secondary and tertiary consequences of on-device AI will take decades to fully appreciate. And the transition itself, while visible in the near horizon, will not happen overnight. Yet on-device AI is coming, and the geopolitics of AI will evolve with it.
A school of fish swim above a staghorn (Acropora cervicornis) coral colony as it grows on the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Cairns, Australia October 25, 2019.
Hard Numbers: Great Barrier Reef suffers worst coral damage, US cuts mRNA vaccine funding, South Korea opens visa-free tourism for Chinese visitors, & More
39: Australia’s Great Barrier Reef – the biggest living ecosystem in the world – has suffered its largest annual coral decline since monitoring began 39 years ago. Tropical cyclones and coral-eating starfish are partly responsible, but experts say rising sea temperatures due to climate change are the main culprit.
5: Law and Justice-backed Karol Nawrocki began his five-year term as Polish president after his inauguration earlier today. Nawrocki will be a consistent thorn in the side of centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk: unlike Tusk, the new president supports tax cuts and doesn’t see a place for Ukraine in NATO nor the European Union.
$500 million: US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. canceled nearly $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine research. mRNA technology, which gives genetic instructions to the body on how to fight diseases, enabled the rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccine. Several large studies say mRNA is safe, but the technology has faced scrutiny from Kennedy Jr., vaccine skeptic groups, and other members of the Trump administration.
2: Just how big is the AI spending boom? Over the past two quarters, investment in artificial intelligence has contributed more to American GDP growth than consumer spending, according to Renaissance Macro, an economic research company.
30: South Korea announced it will temporarily allow Chinese nationals to visit with a tour group for 30 days without needing a visa. It’s the first time that Seoul has allowed Chinese tourists to enter without a visa like this. The pilot program, which runs from Sept. 29 to June 30 next year, is part of a cautious thaw in bilateral relations.
AI for the entrepreneur
At the 2025 AI for Good Summit in Geneva, GZERO’s Tony Maciulis sat down with AI educator and content creator Natalie Choprasert, whose mission is to make artificial intelligence more accessible to everyday business owners.
With a massive following on TikTok and other platforms, Choprasert helps demystify AI tools and implementation, without the jargon. “Business owners don’t have time to test every tool,” she says. “Start with what fits your workflow, not what’s trending.”
In a world overwhelmed by rapid AI releases and rising misinformation, she also warns of new risks, from CEO scams to deepfake fraud, but believes clear labeling and education can build trust. Still, Choprasert remains optimistic: “AI has opened doors I never thought possible as a solopreneur.” Her message: AI isn’t just for tech giants, it’s a force multiplier for creatives, small businesses, and creators everywhere.
This conversation is presented by GZERO in partnership with Microsoft, from the 2025 AI for Good Summit in Geneva, Switzerland. The Global Stage series convenes global leaders for critical conversations on the geopolitical and technological trends shaping our world.
Skilling for the AI era: What do you need to succeed?
"AI isn’t one thing, it’s everything, everywhere, all at once,” says Naria Santa Lucia, General Manager of Microsoft Elevate.
In this Global Stage conversation with GZERO’s Tony Maciulis at the 2025 AI for Good Summit in Geneva, Santa Lucia explores how generative AI is transforming not just the way we work—but how we prepare to work at all. From lesson planning to law, Santa Lucia argues the most in-demand AI skills aren’t technical. “Curiosity, collaboration, and communication are the real power skills.”
She also highlights what’s at stake: the disruption of entry-level jobs, the future of informal and gig workers, and the urgency of reskilling at scale. “We don’t know all the answers, but we can’t afford to wait for them.”
This conversation is presented by GZERO in partnership with Microsoft, from the 2025 AI for Good Summit in Geneva, Switzerland. The Global Stage series convenes global leaders for critical conversations on the geopolitical and technological trends shaping our world.