Abdulsalam Haykal faces a practically impossible task: to bring Syria back online after 14 years of civil war and decades of Western sanctions. In his first interview as Syria’s minister of communications and information technology, Haykal said he’d thought hard about whether he should even accept the post. “It was something that took me time to really consider,” he told Rest of World, as autumn sunlight flickered through the stained-glass windows of his Damascus office.
After…
When TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew arrived at the King Abdulaziz International Conference Center in October 2024, he had no intention of criticizing the Saudi government. He was there at its invitation, as a keynote speaker at a conference hosted by the crown prince’s Future Investment Institute (FII), a glitzy annual event billed by its hosts as “Davos in the Desert.”
Shou had a lot else going on during the week of the FII conference. The U.S. presidential election was fast approaching,…
One winter morning in Quilicura, Chile, plumes of water vapor rose out of a warehouse-like building that serves as Google’s only operational data center in Latin America. Inside, vast halls of servers power the cloud, the invisible infrastructure that stores data and powers artificial intelligence. At 8 a.m. last month, when Chileans usually report for work, the campus looked empty, except for security guards who approached the gates when anyone loitered for too long.
Data centers like…
In late September 2023, staff at Gaza Sky Geeks were preparing for an October full of milestones. The pioneering tech hub, headquartered in Gaza City, was planning a traveling hackathon that would connect programmers in Gaza and the West Bank. Staff had just circulated invitations to a graduation ceremony for the largest-ever cohort to complete the group’s startup accelerator. At least 100 people were expected to attend the October 10 celebration.
Rand Safi, the organization’s senior…
Hu Anyan has held 19 jobs in six cities across China — selling bicycles, running a clothing store, working in a bakery, making 3D architectural renderings, doing night shifts at a logistics warehouse, and eventually delivering packages.
Hu, 46, wrote about these experiences in a memoir-style book, I Deliver Parcels in Beijing. An avid reader, Hu documents his encounters with abusive managers, irate customers, and sprawling residential complexes in casual language, and with colorful…
Earlier this month, China announced new export restrictions on rare earths — critical minerals that are used in semiconductors, smartphones, electric vehicles, and more. The new curbs sparked a race by the U.S. to secure supplies from other countries to avoid disruptions to a wide range of industries.
China produces about 70% of the world’s rare earths — a set of 17 metallic elements — and processes nearly 90% of the minerals. The U.S. has signed deals with Australia and several
Chinese electric-vehicle companies have invested big bucks over the past decade to establish their global supremacy.
Companies such as CATL and BYD, among others, poured $143 billion into foreign EV and battery ventures between 2014 and 2025, according to data from independent research provider Rhodium Group. With Western trade barriers forcing Chinese companies to rethink their approach to global expansion, in 2024, for the first time, they spent more on building the EV supply chain…
The world is increasingly reaching for the stars, but only a few countries have the ability to make it there. As of 2023, over 85 nations have space exploration programs, but only a dozen have active spaceports. This leaves the rest of the world dependent on countries such as the U.S., China, Russia, and France to carry out launches.
Last week, Rest of World reported on this global shortage of spaceports — and how Oman-based Etlaq is attempting to step in and help fill that gap. The…
Jack, one of four virtual idols in the K-pop group Re:Revolution, sat on a stool in the metaverse — digital worlds where people interact through avatars — sporting a sleek cyberpunk battle suit.
Somewhere in Seoul that July afternoon, the artist behind Jack was in a motion capture studio, wearing a full bodysuit that translated his words and moves to his digital counterpart.
“When I was an idol trainee, I thought I would never make it,” the artist, speaking through his…
China is questioning India’s electric vehicle subsidies on the global stage.
The world’s largest EV producer, China has requested the World Trade Organization to settle a dispute with India over incentive schemes, which it claims discriminate against Chinese goods, according to a communication released by the Geneva-based intergovernmental body on October 20.
In its complaint dated October 15, Beijing had challenged three of India’s production-linked incentives, or PLIs. China…
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