The New Era: An Age of Convergence
What is emerging in place of globalisation is not a single organising principle but a convergence of domains that were once treated as distinct.
During the late 20th century, economic policy, national security, technological development, and geopolitics were managed as largely separate spheres. Markets allocated resources, governments set rules at the margins, and strategic considerations were confined to defence and diplomacy.
That separation has collapsed.
In the new era, economic competitiveness, technological leadership, and national security are increasingly inseparable. Decisions about trade, investment, research funding, and infrastructure now carry strategic consequences. The result is not merely a more interventionist state, but a more integrated one.
Technology as the Site of Convergence
No domain illustrates this convergence more clearly than advanced technology.
Artificial intelligence, quantum systems, space-based infrastructure, and clean energy technologies are simultaneously:
- drivers of economic growth
- enablers of military and intelligence capabilities
- foundations of political influence and strategic autonomy
Quantum technologies are particularly instructive. Quantum computing, sensing, and communication collapse distinctions between civilian innovation and strategic capacity. Their development depends on state-backed research, secure supply chains, and controlled knowledge flows. They cannot be efficiently governed by open markets alone.
As with space infrastructure and advanced AI, quantum systems operate in what might be termed “strategic space”—domains where technological advantage translates directly into geopolitical leverage.
From Globalisation to Strategic Convergence
The globalisation era assumed that economic integration would dilute political rivalry by aligning incentives. The age of convergence reverses this logic: economic and technological systems are now deliberately shaped to serve strategic goals.
This explains the return of industrial policy, the tightening of investment screening, and the politicisation of supply chains. These are not temporary distortions but structural responses to convergence.
Institutions such as the World Trade Organization, designed to manage economic exchange in isolation from power politics, are increasingly misaligned with this reality.
Meanwhile, strategic competition—most visibly between the United States and China—accelerates convergence by forcing governments to align economic and security priorities more tightly.
Convergence Produces Blocs, Not Universality
The age of convergence does not eliminate cooperation, but it reshapes it.
Instead of universal openness, cooperation occurs within bounded systems of trust: among allies, within regions, and across shared technological standards. Trade, data, and research flow more freely inside these systems than between them.
This produces a world that is neither fully global nor fully fragmented. It is selectively integrated—open where interests align, closed where vulnerabilities dominate.
For smaller and middle powers, this raises difficult questions about alignment, autonomy, and technological dependence. For firms, it complicates scale and raises costs. For policymakers, it demands coordination across domains that were once managed separately
Conclusion: The End of Separation
The globalisation era rested on separation: between economics and security, markets and politics, efficiency and resilience. That separation is no longer sustainable.
The emerging age of convergence recognises that power now operates across systems rather than within sectors. Technology, capital, and influence converge in ways that markets alone cannot manage.
This new era will be less elegant than globalisation, more contested, and more complex. But it reflects a clearer understanding of how modern power functions—and of the risks of pretending otherwise.
Globalisation promised convergence through markets.
The new era delivers convergence through strategy.