A.1 Geopolitical Fragmentation Primary scenario driver
| Indicator | Data point | Trend | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bilateral vs. multilateral trade agreements | 354 RTAs in force by 2024, up from 50 in 1990; multilateral trade progress remains weak | Fragmenting rapidly | WTO RTA Database |
| Active sanctions regimes | OFAC and EU sanctions activity remains elevated and continuously updated | Rapidly expanding | OFAC; EU Sanctions Map |
| US–China trade flow | US–China goods trade fell materially from 2022 to 2023 while Mexico and Vietnam gained share | Decoupling / rerouting measurable | US Census Bureau; UN Comtrade |
| Investment screening | CFIUS caseload remains high; EU screening cooperation continues to expand | Tightening rapidly | CFIUS; European Commission |
| Economic statecraft | Export controls and industrial policy increasingly used as instruments of geopolitical competition | Structural, not cyclical | BIS; GTA; NIPO |
| Data and AI restrictions | Emerging controls on training data flows, model weights, and AI-as-a-service across blocs | Accelerating from low base | BIS; national AI strategy documents |
A.2 Robotics and Automation Primary scenario driver
| Indicator | Data point | Trend | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Industrial robot installations | 542,000 robots installed globally in 2024; 500,000+ for a fourth consecutive year | Growing but uneven | IFR World Robotics 2025 |
| Regional concentration | Asia accounted for c. 74% of new deployments in 2024 | Scale concentrated in Asia | IFR World Robotics 2025 |
| Warehouse automation | AMRs and warehouse robotics continue to scale among leading operators | Concentrated at top tier | IFR; major company reporting |
| Agentic AI | Autonomous planning and execution systems moving from research to early enterprise deployment | Emerging rapidly | Vendor reporting; Stanford AI Index |
| Humanoid signal | Humanoids remain an option-value story more than a broad deployment reality | Emerging but speculative | Vendor announcements; FTI |
A.3 AI Maturity Primary scenario driver
| Indicator | Data point | Trend | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Corporate AI investment | Corporate AI investment reached $252.3bn in 2024; private AI investment rose 44.5% | Accelerating rapidly | Stanford AI Index 2025 |
| Enterprise readiness | AI capability is rising faster than operational redesign in most companies | Two-speed adoption | Stanford AI Index; McKinsey 2025 |
| Workforce expectations | WEF surveyed 1,000+ employers covering 14 million workers across 55 economies | Broad transformation expected through 2030 | WEF Future of Jobs 2025 |
| Supply-chain deployment | AI planning at scale remains more limited than generic AI adoption | Human-in-loop still standard | Gartner; vendor case material |
| AI infrastructure constraints | Data center construction pipeline growing but constrained by energy, water, and skilled trades | Bottleneck shifting from chips to physical infrastructure | IEA; industry reporting |
A.4 Energy, Carbon, and Transport Cross-cutting modifier
| Indicator | Data point | Trend | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electric heavy trucks | Electric medium- and heavy-duty truck sales exceeded 90,000 in 2024 and grew nearly 80% YoY | Growing, but still low share | IEA Global EV Outlook 2025 |
| Carbon pricing | Carbon pricing covers around 28% of global emissions and raised over $100bn in 2024 | Rising structurally | World Bank State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2025 |
| Shipping decarbonization | IMO 2023 strategy and 2025 net-zero framework are hardening the regulatory path | More binding framework | IMO |
| Suez / Red Sea disruption | By May 2025, Suez tonnage remained about 70% below the 2023 average | Route reliability remains impaired | UNCTAD Review of Maritime Transport 2025 |
| Supply chain insurance | War-risk premiums for Red Sea/Gulf of Aden transit elevated; corridor-level insurance costs rising | Becoming a structural cost factor | Lloyd's; industry reporting |
A.5 Climate Disruption and Route Security Severity amplifier
| Indicator | Data point | Trend | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Global climate signal | 2015–2025 were the hottest 11 years on record | Increasing severity | WMO State of the Global Climate 2025 |
| Extreme weather impact | Extreme weather is affecting infrastructure, migration, food security, and operating stability | Operationally material | WMO |
| Water stress | Panama Canal drought disruptions, semiconductor fab water requirements, agricultural dependencies | Near-term and sector-specific | WMO; industry reporting |
| Chokepoints | Hormuz carries c. 11% of maritime trade and over one-third of seaborne oil exports | High systemic exposure | UNCTAD 2025 |
| Logistics performance | LPI now includes dwell time, connectivity, and corridor lead-time tracking | Better operational benchmarking | World Bank LPI 2023 |
A.6 Workforce and Demographics Severity amplifier
| Indicator | Data point | Trend | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Working-age population | OECD working-age population projected to decline 8% from 2023 to 2060 | Structural tightening | OECD Employment Outlook 2025 |
| Country concentration | Many East Asian and Central/Eastern European countries face declines above 30%; Korea up to 46% | Demographic pressure concentrated in key manufacturing zones | OECD Employment Outlook 2025 |
| Global demographic baseline | UN World Population Prospects remains the baseline dataset for country-level population trajectories | Essential baseline | UN WPP 2024 |
| Skills / labor availability | Technology and demographics jointly reshape labor supply and reskilling needs through 2030 | Supply chain labor risk rising | WEF Future of Jobs 2025 |
| AI infrastructure trades | Electricians, plumbers, construction workers, civil engineers constraining data center build-out | Emerging bottleneck | Industry reporting; IEA |
A.7 Critical Minerals and Resource Scarcity Structural force
| Indicator | Data point | Trend | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Refining concentration | Top 3 regions control 86% of copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, rare earth processing (up from 82% in 2020) | Concentrating further | IEA Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 |
| Rare earth dominance | China controls 90%+ of rare earth downstream value chain and 94% of sintered permanent magnet production | Structural dominance | IEA Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 |
| Export restriction impact | Rare earth shipments fell 74% following China's April 2025 export restrictions | Weaponization accelerating | Industry reporting; trade data |
| Lithium demand | Lithium demand rose 29% in 2024; energy sector drove 85% of battery metal demand growth | Accelerating demand | IEA Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 |
| Investment gap | Mineral development spending grew only 5% in 2024 (down from 14% in 2023); real growth just 2% | Investment lagging demand | IEA Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 |
| Water stress | Panama Canal drought 2023–24; semiconductor fab and data center water intensity; one-third of rice, wheat, corn in highly stressed zones | Near-term and cross-sector | WMO; Chatham House; industry reporting |
| Copper constraint | Copper on multi-year backlog alongside power transformers; electrification and AI infrastructure competing for same supply | Structural bottleneck | IEA; industry reporting |
A.8 Circularity and Extended Producer Responsibility Regulatory force
| Indicator | Data point | Trend | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reverse logistics market | Global reverse logistics market reached $841 billion in 2024; projected 7.2% CAGR through 2034 | Growing structurally | Industry research |
| EU regulatory trajectory | Digital product passports, Ecodesign Regulation, right-to-repair, EPR expanding across product categories | Binding and accelerating | European Commission |
| EU Deforestation Regulation | EUDR requires commodity-level traceability for agricultural inputs entering EU markets | Structural compliance requirement | European Commission |
| Profitability signal | Companies implementing circular strategies report average 23% profit margin increase within 3 years | Economic case strengthening | Industry research |
| Recycled content mandates | Mandatory recycled-content thresholds expanding across battery, packaging, automotive, and electronics | Regulatory floor rising | European Commission; national legislation |
| AI-enabled sorting | AI and robotics enabling near-perfect waste sorting and modular disassembly at scale | Emerging technology enabler | Industry reporting |