Over the past decade and a half, I have attended many meetings and conferences, and met many people in Western governments, think tanks and academia who have been concerned about the rise of autocracies across the world. Many of them believe that authoritarian tendencies are the biggest threat to the liberal world order and rules-based system. But I beg to differ. I believe the biggest threat to the liberal world order comes from liberal democracies and not their autocratic nemeses. That is because there is a widening chasm between the values Western governments proclaim to uphold and their actual conduct.

Nikki Haley, presidential candidate and former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., weighs in after President Biden authorized an air strike in response to an Iranian drone that killed an American. Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley called on the Biden administration to get tough on a slew of foreign adversaries or risk war after an American citizen was killed in an Iranian drone strike in Syria. "It shows what happens when there's American weakness," Haley said Friday of the attack on "America's Newsroom." "Whether it's in Afghanistan, whether you see it in Ukraine, whether you see it on the southern border, you're going to continue to see more of these things happen." "There is no deterrence," she continued.

UK manufacturing firms will need to see their public and private investment in artificial intelligence increase, in order to remain competitive against rising economies focusing on the technology and to escape the cold shadow cast by the US and China. Although China and the US will likely be the key power players in AI-driven economies of the future, ascendant countries such as Singapore, Israel, Ireland and Finland pose significant competition for British firms, who are among other "traditional champions" of the technology like their Canadian, French and German counterparts. The data, which assessed the research performance, start-up funding and supercomputing prowess of 54 countries, is derived from the Global AI Index. It suggests a coming and radical power shift from economies that are "no longer defined by gross domestic product (GDP) or geography…[but] according to their capacity to take part in a global system shaped by artificial intelligence." The report looks at the impact of private investment in artificial intelligence, while also considering the critical role public, or state, finance can have on a country's global ranking.

Last year, China unveiled its development of a new artificial intelligence system for its foreign policy. It's called a "geopolitical environment simulation and prediction platform," and it works by crunching huge amounts of data and then providing foreign policy suggestions to Chinese diplomats. According to one source, China has already used a similar AI system to vet almost every foreign investment project in the past few years. Consider what this development means: Slowly, foreign policy is moving away from diplomats, political-risk firms and think tanks, the "go-to" organizations of the past. Slowly, foreign policy is moving toward advanced algorithms whose primary objective is to analyze data, predict events and advise governments on what to do.

A new artificial intelligence (AI) accelerator founded by a Hong Kong-born venture capitalist wants to bring Asia's best AI start-ups to the global stage. Dubbed Zeroth.ai, the AI accelerator was founded by Tak Lo, who most recently was a venture partner at Hong Kong venture capital company Mind Fund and a director at UK-based VC Techstars. "AI for me is something that will move the meter on technology in the next five to 10 years, there's no dispute about that," Lo said. The accelerator programme, which is currently accepting applications from AI start-ups in Asia, will officially begin in November this year. "I want to bring the wealth of experience and network from being a venture capitalist in New York and London to Asia and Hong Kong," Lo said.