The Next Decade
Humans are naturally curious about the future. To varying degrees, most of us would like to know what the future holds, particularly during times of perceived uncertainty or instability.
However, as author Nassim Taleb notes, traditional prediction methods are dangerous, especially for "Black Swan" events. He argues that they create a false sense of security.
Instead of precise forecasts, he advocates for preparedness, robustness, and antifragility, focusing on the potential consequences of events rather than their probabilities to build systems that can withstand and even thrive on uncertainty.
So, how do we sensibly gauge what the next decade may have in store for us?
One approach is to consider that the next ten years will most likely be shaped by a tug-of-war between compounding risks and compounding capabilities: slow global growth and heavy debt, fast technological diffusion, and an energy system in flux.
To better understand these, we can use a simple framework with eight lenses to gauge likely outcomes:
1. The Macroeconomy
2. Security and Statecraft
3. Climate and Energy
4. Technology
5. Trade and Supply Chains
6. Demography and Urbanisation
7. Money and Payments
8. Biosciences.
1. Macroeconomy: Slow Growth, Heavy Debt, Tougher Choices
The world enters the next decade with steady but uninspiring momentum.
The IMF projects global growth of about 3.3 per cent in 2025 and 2026, below the pre-pandemic average. Inflation is expected to keep easing, though not uniformly across economies. That combination suggests central banks will keep cutting rates carefully, not recklessly.
Debt is the macro wild card.
Public debt has climbed to a record, with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimating that global public debt was roughly 102 trillion dollars in 2024.
Servicing burdens are hardest to bear in developing countries, where interest payments have reached new highs.
Meanwhile, credit markets have ballooned. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) notes that sovereign and corporate bond debt now exceeds 100 trillion dollars, and issuance by emerging market firms has surged in recent years.
Turning points to watch:
1. First, fiscal stress in a handful of midsize emerging economies could test the global safety net.
2. Second, the path of U.S. rates will determine the cost of rolling that wall of debt.
3. Third, if productivity accelerates because of AI or energy investment, the growth-debt arithmetic improves.
Most likely scenario:
A “muddle-through” base case with growth near 3 per cent, periodic risk-off episodes around elections, tariffs or debt scares, then stabilisation as policy steps in.
In this path, debt overhang dampens public investment, but outright systemic crises are the exception rather than the rule. The upside comes from productivity gains that let central banks loosen without reigniting inflation; the downside comes from synchronised fiscal tightening that drags the cycle.
2. Security and Statecraft: More Spending, More Friction, More“Guardrails”
Security spending is already in a new regime.
Global military expenditures rose to about 2.7 trillion dollars in 2024, the steepest annual increase since the end of the Cold War. Europe and the Middle East drove much of the rise.
The world is also rearranging its diplomatic furniture.
The BRICS bloc has expanded, adding Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE. In 2025, it also admitted Indonesia as a full member, signalling a broader Global South coordination effort even as members’ interests diverge.
Geoeconomics shows up at the chokepoints.
Early 2024 attacks in and around the Red Sea cut Suez Canal trade by about half year over year, reminding everyone that logistics are geopolitical.
Export controls and industrial policy have become mainstream tools, particularly in semiconductors and sensitive AI capabilities, and like tariffs in a past era, they may endure even as the details evolve.
Turning points to watch:
Whether major powers install credible “guardrails” around AI, cyber operations and space assets, the trajectory of Europe’s rearmament, and how new groupings like an enlarged BRICS translate symbolism into specific initiatives.
Most likely scenario:
Regional conflicts persist, defence outlays stay elevated, and strategic competition continues, but with periodic de-escalation and practical cooperation on transnational risks such as AI safety and climate finance.
That keeps the world in a “messy multipolar” equilibrium rather than a clean split into blocs.
3. Climate and Energy
The climate is no longer a background variable.
The World Meteorological Organisation confirmed that 2024 was the warmest year on record at about 1.55°C above the pre-industrial baseline, with the 2015–2024 decade the warmest on record..
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) synthesis clarifies the stakes: to keep 1.5°C within reach, global emissions need deep, rapid and sustained cuts this decade.
Policy is shifting, if unevenly.
At COP28, nearly 200 countries agreed to accelerate the energy transition, including a collective pledge to triple global renewable capacity and double the rate of energy-efficiency improvements by 2030.
That commitment is ambitious and still underdelivering relative to the target, but it sets a direction for capital deployment, grids and permitting reform.
On the ground, electricity demand is poised to rise as data centres, electrified transport and industry scale.
A 2025 international review estimates data centre electricity use at roughly 360 TWh in 2023 and projects 1.8 to 2.4 per cent of global demand by 2030, with AI workloads alone possibly reaching 200 to 400 TWh by 2030.
Critical mineral supply will remain challenging.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) show how refining capacity and resource concentration for lithium, nickel and cobalt make clean-tech supply chains vulnerable, pushing countries to diversify and recycle.
Turning points to watch:
1. Transmission build-out and permitting reform.
2. Battery storage costs and deployment.
3. An eventual price or standard on embodied carbon in traded goods.
4. Whether grid investment catches the AI and EV waves.
Most likely scenario:
A “faster than expected, slower than needed” transition.
Renewables, batteries, and electrification continue to beat forecasts on cost and scale, but transmission and permitting bottlenecks slow system integration.
Weather volatility and water stress remain costly. The mix shifts, yet coal, oil and gas demand plateaus gradually rather than collapsing.
4. Technology: General-Purpose AI Becomes Infrastructure, and Rules Arrive
AI’s step-change is moving from demos to deployment.
The Stanford AI Index shows rising organisational use, measurable cost savings in functions like service operations and software, and a surge in policy activity as governments try to catch up.
Europe’s AI Act entered into force in 2024 and is phasing in obligations through 2026 and 2027, including special rules for general-purpose models. That gives the world its first economy-wide, risk-tiered framework for AI, even as guidance continues to evolve.
Security baselines are shifting, too.
Governments have started to set boundaries on the diffusion of the most sensitive AI model weights and supporting compute, even as the exact contours of export controls evolve.
In parallel, the post-quantum migration has a clock on it: the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the U.S. (NIST) finalised new cryptographic standards in 2024, and extensive networks will spend the decade swapping out algorithms to stay secure against future quantum attacks.
Turning points to watch:
1. The degree to which AI tools actually lift measured productivity.
2. The pace of grid-adjacent data centre investment.
3. Global consensus around evaluations and incident reporting.
4. Progress on post-quantum cryptography deployment in critical infrastructure.
Most likely scenario:
AI becomes part of the enterprise and public-sector stack, first improving service quality and developer productivity and then gradually showing up in macro statistics.
Regulation follows a risk-based pattern: it is focused on high-risk uses, disclosure, and safety testing, with sector regulators embedding AI clauses.
Cyber risk remains elevated, and the post-quantum transition becomes a long, expensive “plumbing” project rather than a single switch-over.
5. Trade Supply Chains: From “De-Globalisation” to Re-Globalisation Under New Rules
The world is not de-globalising so much as rewiring.
The World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) recent reports emphasise how trade’s benefits still rely on open digital flows and services, even as supply chains adjust.
The Red Sea episode showed how quickly route risk can ripple into prices and inventories, so firms favour “multi-local” manufacturing, nearer distribution nodes and better visibility software.
Two tensions will matter.
The first is policy: tariffs and subsidies can reduce vulnerability to single suppliers, but persistent escalation can erode overall efficiency.
The second is standards: the green transition pushes carbon-related product rules that shape trade flows as much as tariffs.
The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) research on fragmentation warns of real efficiency costs if blocs harden further, which is why continued diversification without a decisive split is the most plausible path.
Turning points to watch:
1. Tariff paths among the largest economies.
2. The spread of “green standards” in steel, cement and batteries.
3. Cross-border data rules; and logistics resilience investments at maritime chokepoints.
Most likely scenario:
Trade volumes grow modestly, services and digital trade gain share, and firms hold more inventory in exchange for fewer nasty surprises.
Fragmentation pressures persist, but most countries mix hedging with engagement to keep options open.
6. Demography and Urbanisation: Ageing North, Youthful South, and More Megacities
Population dynamics are diverging.
United Nations (UN) projections show slowing global population growth, ageing in most advanced and many middle-income economies, and youthful demographics in parts of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
That mix means different macro constraints and opportunities: tighter labour markets and elder-care spending in rich countries, urban jobs and education imperatives where populations are still climbing.
Urbanisation will continue concentrating economic activity, especially in African and South Asian corridors. The policy question is whether infrastructure and skills can keep pace so that cities are engines of productivity rather than congestion and cost.
Turning points to watch:
1. Migration regimes in ageing economies.
2. The speed of digital and transport infrastructure in rapidly growing cities.
3. How climate risk maps onto urban growth on coastlines and river basins.
Most likely scenario:
It's a two-track world: ageing, capital-rich economies lean on automation and immigration to maintain growth, while demographically young regions compete to attract manufacturing, services, and climate finance.
The winners link education, connectivity and clean power at scale.
7. Money and Payments: Digital Rails, Cautious Central Banks
Expect a decade of payments modernisation, not monetary revolution.
Central banks remain cautious about retail Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC), yet the work continues to advance.
The Bank for International Settlements 2024 survey found that about 91 per cent of central banks are exploring some form of CBDC, with more momentum on wholesale systems.
The Atlantic Council’s tracker shows well over a hundred jurisdictions in exploration, pilots or launch, and cross-border experiments like mBridge are widening.
Two practical shifts are likely:
1. Wholesale CBDCs and upgraded real-time gross settlement systems will make cross-border payments cheaper and faster through interlinking rather than a single global platform.
2. A clearer perimeter around stablecoins and tokenised deposits will emerge, so banks and fintechs can innovate while meeting prudential norms. The result is a layered system where digital currencies interoperate with card networks, instant payment rails and FX venues rather than replacing them.
Turning points to watch:
Standards for cross-border interoperability, privacy expectations for retail CBDCs, and regulatory clarity for stablecoins in the largest markets.
Most likely scenario:
Incremental modernisation: more instant payments, lower remittance costs in selected corridors, and targeted wholesale CBDC pilots that improve settlement in trade and securities.
Retail CBDCs expand in a handful of countries where policy and public trust align, but most citizens still use commercial-bank money and mobile wallets.
8. Biosciences: Editing the Code of Life Moves Beyond Rare Diseases
The biotech curve is also steepening.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first CRISPR-based therapy for sickle cell disease in late 2023, and similar approvals followed through 2024, turning a scientific milestone into regulated medicine.
CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) is a gene-editing technology adapted from a natural defence system in bacteria that allows for precise DNA modification.
It opens a pipeline for gene editing, base editing and in vivo delivery to move from proof of concept into broader indications over the decade.
The practical questions are access and cost.
The early therapies are expensive and complex to deliver. But platform learning curves, better vectors and new manufacturing approaches can push prices down and expand access.
Regulatory agencies will spend much of the decade writing playbooks for safety monitoring and equitable access.
Turning points to watch:
In-vivo editing trials in common diseases, scalable manufacturing for cell and gene therapies, and global surveillance for off-target effects and long-term safety.
Most likely scenario:
Gene editing will become standard in more rare disorders and a small set of common ones, while mRNA, cell therapies, and AI-assisted drug discovery will shorten development cycles.
Health systems wrestle with pricing and reimbursement models to make these cures more widely available.
Three Scenarios for the 2030’s
When combined, the information gleaned from examining the next decade through different lenses provides three scenario arcs:
1. Tension and Tech (Base Case)
Geopolitical friction remains elevated, but not catastrophic.
Military spending stays high, trade rewires without a hard split, and AI diffuses into daily workflows. Growth hovers near 3 per cent as debt limits policy room, yet productivity improves enough to offset drag in advanced economies and support convergence in parts of the Global South.
Climate impacts keep rising, but clean-energy deployment outpaces expectations in many markets. The bottlenecks are grids and permitting rather than hardware.
Given today's institutions and incentives, this is the most probable path.
2. The Accelerated Green Push
A cluster of policy shifts converges: faster permitting, grid interconnection reforms, a price on embodied carbon in key sectors, and more concessional finance for emerging markets.
That unlocks capital for transmission, storage and clean industrial heat.
AI improves planning and maintenance, and data centre expansion leans on new clean power offtakes.
Emissions bend down faster, climate damages stabilise late in the decade, and energy security improves as import exposure falls.
This path is plausible if COP28-era pledges become credible standards, procurement and grid rules.
3. Fragmented Slowdown
Trade restrictions intensify and cross-border standards diverge. A few debt accidents cascade into tighter global financial conditions.
Climate damages are severe in several regions, stalling development and triggering migration spikes.
Technology advances, but adoption is slower amid uncertain rules and power constraints. Growth slips below 3 per cent for several years, and politics get rougher as fiscal space shrinks.
It is the risk case that policymakers will try to avoid through guardrails, debt restructuring tools and climate finance, but it is not unthinkable.
Conclusion
The thread running through all of this is practical execution.
The decade ahead will favour places that do three unglamorous things well:
1. Build and connect clean power to loads.
2. Modernise digital and physical logistics.
3. Write rules that make innovation safer without choking it.
Until next time, the extent to which we can consistently do those things will determine whether the next decade looks like a minefield or more like a construction site.
Dion Le Roux
References
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Bank for International Settlements. Advancing in tandem – results of the 2024 BIS survey on central bank digital currencies and crypto (BIS Papers No. 159), 2025.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “BRICS Expansion and the Future of World Order,” March 31, 2025.
Council on Foreign Relations. “BRICS: An Overview,” backgrounder, updated 2024–2025.
European Commission. “AI Act, regulatory framework and implementation timeline,” 2024–2025.
IEA-4E (International Energy Agency Technology Collaboration Programme). Data Centre Energy Use: A Critical Review of Models and Results, 2025.
International Energy Agency. Critical Minerals Market Review (latest editions 2024–2025).
International Monetary Fund. World Economic Outlook Update: Global Growth—Divergent and Uncertain, January 2025.
International Monetary Fund (IMF Blog). “Red Sea Attacks Disrupt Global Trade,” March 7, 2024.
IPCC. AR6 Synthesis Report, 2023.
NIST. FIPS 203/204/205 final post-quantum cryptography standards, 2024.
OECD. Credit Outlook 2025 (chapter on bond markets and global debt), 2025.
Reuters. “Indonesia joins BRICS bloc as full member,” January 6, 2025.
SIPRI. “Unprecedented rise in global military expenditure,” press release, April 28, 2025.
Stanford HAI. AI Index 2025: Policy Highlights and AI Index portal, 2025.
UN DESA. “World Population Prospects 2024,” press materials, 2024.
UNFCCC. “COP28 Agreement and Global Stocktake outcomes, including tripling renewables and doubling efficiency by 2030,” 2023–2024.
UNCTAD. A World of Debt 2025 and related releases, June 26, 2025.
U.S. FDA. Press releases on the first CRISPR-based therapy approvals, 2023–2024.
WMO. State of the Global Climate 2024, March 2025, and press confirmation of 2024 as the warmest year, January 2025.
WTO. World Trade Report 2023: Re-globalisation and World Trade Report 2024: Trade and Inclusiveness, 2023–2024.