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Countries that remove friction, protect trust, and advocate for free trade and the flow of ideas, capital, talent, goods, and services are the ones best positioned to thrive in the coming decade.
Speaking at the opening of the Abu Dhabi Finance Week 2025, Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, managing director and group CEO of Mubadala Investment Co, an Abu Dhabi-based sovereign investor with US$330 billion assets under management, believes the world has shifted on its axis. “Technology is outrunning institutions, markets, and regulatory systems,” he says. “And this will sit right at the intersection of this realignment.”
Supply chains are reorganizing around reliability and proximity, he continues. “New corridors are opening across Asia, Latin America and the Middle East,”
Al Mubarak notes that demand is being reshaped by demographic momentum and some of the world's fastest rates of digital adaptation. “Innovation is a central driving force with anchor economies such the United States and China continuing to set the pace,” he says.
And what this means is that the advantage now accrues to nations that can convert stability, talent, openness, and intelligence infrastructure into economic philosophy.
In a fragmented world, competitiveness is no longer about size, he stresses. It's about how fast a country can move, integrate technology, and attract the world's best people and the best capital.
The coming decade will reward those who position themselves for the future that is being shaped.
Al Mubarak advises: “If you believe the world is changing, invest or you can shape that change. If you believe the next decade belongs to intelligence, energy, and technology, invest where they converge and empower others. And if you believe the future will be defined by those who can move first, move decisively, invest where that is the national operating model.”
