For years, the Gulf has quietly become one of the most influential forces shaping the global economy.
This influence extends not only to energy but also to capital and, increasingly, to talent.
GCC sovereign wealth funds today control more than $4.9 trillion in assets, with projections to exceed $7 trillion by 2030, positioning them among the world’s most powerful allocators of capital. At the same time, cities like Dubai, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Doha have evolved into hubs attracting global founders, engineers, and operators building companies that scale across regions.
This is no longer a region that simply fuels the global economy. It is one that finances it, builds within it, and increasingly shapes its direction.
And yet, it is also the region where a single month of conflict has managed to do what five years of war elsewhere could not: disrupt the global system at its core.
