This is where governments and innovation ecosystems need to work in tandem. Policy is advancing – from the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act to national chip strategies – but technological innovation, especially AI-powered sorting, recovery, and material discovery, will be critical. In plastics and packaging, for example, new AI-driven waste collection and sorting solutions improve the quality and cost efficiency of material recovery. Companies like Greyparrot or EverestLabs are leading innovators in this field of waste intelligence. AI is also supporting material discovery and innovation processes. The start-up One Five, for example, is helping through analytics-based packaging optimization to balance a multitude of complex factors that influence design decisions.
In today’s tech landscape, control is everything. Leaders who can close the loop on materials, manufacturing, and innovation will be the ones shaping the next era of digital power. In this new context, the wait-and-see approach may be riskier than taking a proactive role to develop a competitive advantage. In the age of fractured geopolitics we’ve traced through this series, the line between national advantage and corporate survival has never been thinner.
In our next and final article of our five-part series, we’ll zoom out to the bigger picture: how climate resilience, resource scarcity, and the planet’s natural boundaries are redrawing the map for economic growth, and what it will take for business leaders to stay ahead in this changing landscape.