There is a question every civilisation has had to answer in its own era: What is the engine of prosperity? For most of human history, the answers were familiar — land, labour, capital, natural resources, trade routes. Nations that commanded these inputs commanded wealth and power. The Industrial Revolution added machinery and energy to that list. The 20th century added finance, institutions, and geopolitical leverage. But we are living through a rupture in that long pattern. For the first time, technology is not merely one factor among many that supports economic growth. It is the primary, foundational, and irreplaceable determinant of whether a nation grows, stagnates, or declines.

Consider what the last three decades have revealed. Countries that invested early and seriously in technology — the US, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Israel — have generated disproportionate shares of global wealth and wielded disproportionate geopolitical influence. Contrast this with resource-rich nations that failed to build technological capacity. They remain dependent — their wealth volatile, their growth episodic, their strategic position weak.........

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