The COVID-19 seems to plunge the world further into a deep confusion. Messages are most of the time contradictory. They vary according to countries and actors, from “the epidemic is behind us”, “let us all go back to business as usual and work towards recovery” to worries of possible starting new pandemic wave. This confusion …
Continue reading “The emergence of a COVID-19 international order”
This brief article is a first early warning about food insecurity resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The danger is rising and deserves further and more in-depth analysis and monitoring. As the COVID-19 pandemic developed, we immediately added food insecurity on our watch list of issues to monitor (see our COVID-19 section). To date, mid-May 2020, …
Continue reading “COVID-19 and Food Insecurity Early Warning”
On 11 March, the WHO characterised the COVID-19 as a pandemic. The probability to see the WHO, finally, accepting the label had been rising everyday. Indeed, we have witnessed the proliferation of clusters and outbreaks globally, that led to the emergence of multiple epidemic centres. Since we first published this article, the pandemic intensified. On …
The “new Coronavirus COVID-19 epidemic outbreak” became the COVID-19 pandemic. With time we learn more about the SARS-CoV-2 (the virus), the COVID-19 (the disease) and its multiple components and impacts. As a result, we must continue to closely monitor it, using the best possible ressources available. All actors should also develop scenarios to make sure …
Continue reading “Resources to monitor the COVID-19 Pandemic”
This article focuses on scenarios for war. It explains first why scenarios need to be mutually exclusive. Then it provides logical templates for building scenarios dealing with war. Finally it offers an updated bibliography of scenarios for Syria over time. Towards an Operational Methodology to Analyse Future Security Threats and Political Risk (1) Methodology to …
Continue reading “How to Analyse Future Security Threats (4): Scenarios and War”
In February 2019, during the Saudi Arabia-China economic forum, the two countries signed for more than 28 billion dollars deals (“Saudi-Chinese Investment Forum Signs 35 Deals During Crown Prince’s Beijing Visit”, Ashark Al Awsat, 22 February, 2019). These gigantic deals are part of the growing Saudi-China relationship. They are the economic and political continuation of …
Continue reading “Saudi Arabia and the Chinese Belt and Road: the Great Convergence”
The warming Arctic is the stage of an ongoing maritime, geopolitical and geo-economic revolution.
For example, end of August 2018, the Danish Maersk Company, one of the major ship owners in the world and the world’s largest container shipping company by both fleet size and cargo capacity, sent a first container ship using this route, in order to test its commercial use. The ship went from Vladivostok to Saint Petersburg, through the Bering Strait, following the northern coast of Siberia (Tom Embury-Morris, “Container Ship Crosses Arctic Route for First Time in History Due to Melting Sea Ice”, The Independent, 18 September, 2018).
Since 2013, each year, the number the number of Chinese cargo convoys using the Russian Northern Sea Route, also known as the North East passage, increases thanks to the rapid warming of the region, which transforms
This article focuses on the race to exascale computing and its multi-dimensional political and geopolitical impacts, a crucial response major actors are implementing in terms of High Performance Computing (HPC) power, notably for the development of their artificial intelligence (AI) systems. It thus ends for now our series on HPC as driver of and stake for AI, among the five we identified in Artificial Intelligence – Forces, Drivers and Stakes: the classical big data, HPC and the race to quantum supremacy as related critical uncertainty, algorithms, “sensors and expressors”, and finally needs and usages.
This article defines and briefly explains the various names and labels given to activities and practices anticipating or foreseeing the future. Indeed, from risk management to Strategic Foresight and Warning (SF&W) the field of anticipation includes many perspectives and practices centred on different themes. Meanwhile, various actors use different names for SF&W, or very similar approaches. It is thus important to clarify what various labels and names mean, even if borders between categories are often fuzzy.
This article explores three major challenges actors face when defining and carrying out their policies and answers in terms of high performance computing power (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI), considering the political and geopolitical consequences of the feedback relationship linking AI in its Deep Learning component and computing power – hardware – or rather HPC. …
