McKinsey Global Institute

It would be natural to assume that tariffs are the driving force behind recent major shifts in global trade patterns. But while geopolitically-driven trade policies are indeed reconfiguring flows, longer-term shifts in technology and economic development are determining what the world builds and buys, write Tiago Devesa, Jeongmin Seong, and Olivia White in Project Syndicate.

Tariffs. AI. Geopolitics. Trade in Asia saw major disruptions in 2025—and that can be unsettling. But it’s also important to remember what didn’t change: the progress of trade itself. According to recent research from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), US imports and Chinese exports both hit record highs in 2025, and intra-Asian trade deepened, write Gautam Kumra, Jeongmin Seong, and Tiago Devesa in Bloomberg Asia.

You may have heard of “hyperscalers.” Now, the global economy is being reshaped by “omniscalers.”Omniscalers are a group of nine companies that are not only among the world’s biggest investors, but are also playing simultaneously across the world’s most important “arenas.” We define an “arena” as industries with the highest growth rates and the most competitive dynamism, where market-share changes are the norm, write Chris Bradley and Kevin Russell in Time.