There is an excellent online magazine called Rest of World that surfaces technology stories from everywhere that is not in the normal Western-focused mainstream of international journalism — which adds up to a lot of places. The concept and its acronym (ROW) have long been used in US and UK diplomacy, not always in a good way: it was sometimes not much better than using “etc.” Rest of World was founded in 2020 by Sophie Schmidt, who has a diverse background in tech as well as whatever advantages accrue to being the daughter of Google’s Eric Schmidt. The tech angle is critical. Like Google itself in its youth, Rest of World saw tech as a spreader of knowledge and, especially, of economic capacity, including in non-industrial economies.
In the AI era, where massive investments in a few familiar companies are expected to generate massive returns, it remains worthwhile for investors not to forget the ROW. As always, India’s tech scene provides examples. SIGnal readers may remember an earlier post or two on this (The America Stack, 5 Feb. 2025; Network Powers - 2 of 2, 7 May 2026). Rest of World itself has always had a strong India game, as in “India’s VCs Are Beating US Investors at Home” just last week.
This kind of analysis isn’t just about national economies and how they deal with balancing inward FDI from major industrialized countries with the desire to build their own tech capabilities. It is also, and increasingly, about ROW capital and expertise themselves going into new markets. After all, part of the rise of Chinese digital technology from zero to global dominance featured tech transfer by Chinese companies into poorer ROW markets that Western and ex-China East Asian powerhouses (such as Samsung) would not bother with. That set a powerful example.
A good case today is Indian and Gulf investors in Africa. In the early days, both India and the Gulf relied on Chinese telecommunications companies to build affordable digital infrastructure. That in turn led to the development of local expertise and experience. Indian and Gulf investors then looked to Africa. Much of the investment has been in telecoms. India’s Bharti Airtel, via Airtel Africa, recently saw Q4 revenues climb by a quarter. It is not an easy market to operate in, but Indian companies can be well positioned to do what Chinese companies did 15 and 20 years ago: leverage their experience of a difficult (but also rather protected) market at home to enable success in difficult markets abroad.
Gulf investors are active at many levels. For example, Emirates Telecommunications Group has long been the top shareholder (now just over 17%) in Vodafone. Vodafone is in turn the main shareholder (65%) of Vodacom, which has more than 200 million customers across the African continent and recently bought control of Kenya’s Safaricom. Vodafone is usually described as a “British company” and Vodacom as a “South African company,” but that kind of shorthand can be a bit misleading. (Bharti Airtel is itself an “Indian company” but its largest shareholder at ~44% is Singapore Telecommunications, or Singtel.) Nigerian fintech companies are now at a point where they can look to expand into the Persian Gulf. They are partly inspired by the success of Kenyan payments system M-Pesa — itself part of Safaricom.
The point is that, even in tech, ROW investment and profits can circulate within the ROW markets without too much reference to the West and other regions that industrialized earlier. The tech future is not simply a choice between the US/Japan/Korea and China.
Nor is it accurate to see poorer markets, as in Africa, as merely more vulnerable to geopolitical ructions like the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. Nigeria’s Dangote, featured in SIGnal last year (“The Nine Lives of Economic Nationalism” parts two and three), has benefitted, as a seller of petroleum and urea fertilizer, from instability in the Middle East. It is now preparing to list on the London and Nigerian exchanges but also, in smaller portions, on Ghanaian, Kenyan, and South African exchanges. This innovative move, according to Aliko Dangote, is meant to spread African corporate ownership across the continent. Meanwhile Africa’s mining companies are thriving as, in part, a direct result of US-China competition over minerals.
In short, the ROW is increasingly able to look after itself in terms of industrialization and digital development. The dominant global narrative of protectionism, self-reliance, and tech sovereignty is not the only story. There are also diffusion, IP transfer, Global South cross-investment, and much else. Economic power is very gradually becoming decentralized. Developed-world retrenchment will affect that but it is not likely to change it.