The Financial Times (FT) recently observed that “the contrast between a world order on fire and a world economy on autopilot is glaring”. Few observations better capture the defining contradiction confronting business leaders today. Financial markets continue to celebrate the promise of AI and technological innovation, while governments are behaving as though they are preparing for a far more fragmented, contested and resource-constrained world. Investors are increasingly pricing a future of abundance; policymakers are increasingly planning for one of scarcity. So which view is correct? The answer is both. The challenge is that they are responding to different realities that are becoming increasingly intertwined. In many respects we are back to the future. For roughly three decades after the end of the Cold War, business operated in an unusually benign global environment. Relative peace between the major powers, expanding trade, abundant energy, cheap capital, low inflation and increasingly integrated supply chains created a world in which efficiency became the organising principle of economic strategy. Companies optimised production across borders, investors searched relentlessly for yield, and governments largely trusted markets to allocate capital and resources efficiently. The success of this model was such that many came to regard it as the natural order of the global economy. History suggests otherwise. Viewed over centuries rather than decades, the post-Cold War period was less the norm than the exception. Strategic rivalry, industrial policy, resource competition and shifting balances of power have historically shaped economic development far more often than frictionless globalisation. As governments rethink what constitutes economic security, Africa is shifting from the periphery of the global economy towards its strategic centre.What appears to be a new era of geopolitical disruption may instead represent the return of a much older playbook. The technologies may be unprecedented, but the competition for strategic advantage is anything but. Africa offers perhaps the clearest window into this transition. Long viewed primarily through the lens of development, the continent now sits at the intersection of the world’s most important strategic questions: energy security, critical minerals, maritime trade routes, digital infrastructure and demographic growth. As governments rethink what constitutes economic security, Africa is shifting from the periphery of the global economy towards its strategic centre. Much of that shift is being driven by a technological revolution that appears to point in precisely the opposite direction. AI has emerged as the defining technological story of our age. Like the internet before it, AI promises a new wave of productivity growth, reflected in the extraordinary capital flowing into hyperscale data centres, semiconductor manufacturing and digital infrastructure. Yet there is an irony at the heart of this technological revolution. The innovations expected to create unprecedented abundance are simultaneously accelerating a politics of scarcity. Every advance in AI depends upon an increasingly contested set of physical foundations: reliable electricity, advanced semiconductors, critical minerals, transmission infrastructure, water, specialised engineering talent and resilient supply chains. The cloud, it turns out, depends rather heavily on the ground. Rather than reducing dependence on scarce resources, AI is concentrating demand around precisely those assets that have become strategically indispensable (many of which are located in Africa). This helps explain why financial markets and governments increasingly appear to inhabit different worlds. Markets remain focused on the productivity gains AI may unlock. Governments are increasingly preoccupied with securing the physical inputs that make those gains possible. What is emerging is not simply the return of geopolitics, but the return of political economy, where governments are again exerting an outsized influence over markets. Patrick Foulis recently argued in the FT that the world is emerging from a “golden age of arbitrage”. For much of the post-Cold War era, companies generated extraordinary value by arbitraging geography: locating production where labour was cheapest, regulation most accommodating and capital most abundant. Now governments are reversing that equation.The question has shifted from where production is cheapest to where supply is most dependable. Governments are hedging, hoarding and stockpiling in ways that would have seemed commercially irrational a decade ago. Strategic reserves are expanding. Japan continues to pay a premium for long-term LNG contracts. The US and Europe are rebuilding industrial capacity through large-scale subsidy programmes, while China has tightened export controls over strategically important minerals and technologies. “Just in time” has given way to “Just in case”. Efficiency is giving way to resilience, redundancy and national security as the organising principles of economic policy. This new landscape is being shaped by the interaction of four forces that can no longer be analysed in isolation: First, geopolitics increasingly shapes technology. Second, technology increasingly depends upon energy. Third, energy is driving a new cycle of capital investment. And fourth, capital itself is becoming progressively geopolitical. Each of these dynamics reinforces the others. The traditional boardroom habit of treating geopolitics, technology, energy, supply chains and capital allocation as distinct strategic conversations is becoming increasingly obsoleteExport controls reshape technology supply chains. AI accelerates demand for electricity, data centres and critical minerals. Energy security is reviving industrial policy and strategic stockpiling. Capital is increasingly following political alignment as much as economic opportunity. What once appeared to be separate conversations in boardrooms are rapidly converging into a single strategic challenge. Few regions illustrate the convergence of these four forces more clearly than Africa. Across the continent decisions over mining licences, ports, power generation and industrial policy have become proxies for far larger geopolitical and economic contests. As a result, Africa’s comparative advantage has evolved beyond geology into geopolitical relevance. The continent also faces its own abundance paradox. For much of the globalisation era, Africa competed for capital. Increasingly, capital is competing for Africa. The prize is not maximising short-term geopolitical rents but using this moment to catalyse industrialisation, deepen domestic value chains and attract successive waves of long-term investment. Strategic relevance creates leverage, but credibility determines whether that leverage endures. For business leaders the strategic challenge is shifting from navigating four separate risks to understanding one integrated system. The traditional boardroom habit of treating geopolitics, technology, energy, supply chains and capital allocation as distinct strategic conversations is becoming increasingly obsolete. AI cannot be understood without reference to electricity and compute capacity. Supply chain strategy cannot be divorced from industrial policy, export controls or strategic stockpiling. Capital allocation increasingly requires an understanding of political alliances, sanctions regimes and national security alongside traditional financial metrics. The challenge for boards is therefore less about predicting geopolitical events than recognising where strategic dependencies exist within their own organisations, identifying which operational inputs have quietly become strategic assets, and determining where resilience should take precedence over efficiency. Geopolitical literacy is no longer a specialist capability; it is becoming a core source of competitive advantage. AI may well usher in an era of extraordinary abundance. Yet that abundance will depend upon a physical world in which energy, minerals, infrastructure, capital and trust are becoming progressively more contested. That is the central paradox confronting business today. In many respects we are back to the future. The technologies are new, but the competition for strategic advantage is not. Those that recognise that transition early are likely to enjoy one of the most enduring competitive advantages of the decade ahead. • Gopaldas is a director at Signal Risk and a fellow at The Gordon Institute of Business Science.