BY 2030, SAUDI ARABIA OWNS MORE BEHAVIORAL DATA ON WESTERN CONSUMERS THAN ANY WESTERN GOVERNMENT. BY 2040, BIG TECH SPLITS INTO DATA EMPIRES.

Question

Igor Beuker · Accepted Answer

Data is now a geopolitical weapon, and the world's most powerful nations are already at war over it. I forecast that by 2030, Saudi Arabia owns more behavioral data on Western consumers than any Western government does, deployed through sovereign wealth and strategic acquisitions. And by 2040, Big Tech stops being defined by the products it sells and starts being defined by the data territory it controls, Google owns intent, Meta owns social, Oracle owns enterprise and government, Amazon owns transactions, like a 19th-century colonial land grab. The receipts are landing: the US Stargate initiative commits $500 billion; China profiles 1.4 billion people in real time; the EU fined X 120 million euros; and Saudi Arabia's PIF bought Pokémon Go's gaming division for $3.5 billion, while Niantic kept the map and spun out Niantic Spatial with $250 million.

By 2030, saudi arabia owns more behavioral data on western consumers than any western government. By 2040, big tech splits into data empires.