Global Scans · Resources · Weekly Summary

WHAT'S NEXT?: The world is depleting its natural resources at an alarming rate due to population growth and over consumption. Increased competition for ever-diminishing food and water resources may amplify socio-economically motivated armed conflicts and causing quests for more efficient resources on and beyond Planet Earth.

• [New] China could produce sophisticated AI surprisingly efficiently despite having fewer frontier computing resources than the United States. Oli's AI Dispatch
• [New] Shell's pending ARC Resources acquisition is expected to lift production growth to approximately 4% annually through 2030 from a 2025 base, adding liquids output and expanding the Integrated Gas portfolio. MinMaxDoc
• [New] Australia's energy resources, including natural gas, will continue to play an important role in firming renewable energy, supporting high-heat manufacturing and critical minerals processing. Geoscience Australia
• [New] Spain could reach a technical production capacity of up to 22 million tons of bio-SAF and 2.2 million tons of e-SAF by 2030, relying on abundant renewable resources, availability of raw materials, and an expanding industrial base. Moeve Global
• [New] South America holds more than 50% of global lithium resources and could exceed 915,000 tonnes LCE of production by the end of the decade. Panorama Minero
• [New] For many countries, especially in the Global South, opening the weights of models with hundreds of billions or even trillions of parameters will offer limited practical benefit if they lack the computing power, data-center capacity and engineering resources needed to run them at scale. ChinAffairs+
• The aggregation of distributed energy resources including solar, batteries, EVs, and smart devices into Virtual Power Plants is a key trend, enabled by regulatory advancements such as FERC Order 2222. Straits Research
• By the mid-2020s, heat waves, floods, droughts, and other extreme weather events had become more frequent and severe across many parts of Asia, increasing risks to food security, water resources, infrastructure, and public health. EBSCO
• Venezuela will keep ownership of its natural resources while leveraging capital, technology and operational expertise to support the recovery of a strategic industry that has been severely affected by sanctions. Al Jazeera
• The historic deal with Washington to hand over 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil will last 25 years and allow Venezuela to develop its oil industry while preserving ownership of and sovereignty of its resources. Al Jazeera
• Increasing pressure on global water resources is encouraging industries to adopt water reuse and recycling strategies, creating new opportunities for zero valent iron technologies. Persistence Market Research
• Water and food security will form another major pillar of WGES 2026, reflecting the growing pressure that climate change is placing on essential resources. GCC BUSINESS WATCH
• Security concerns in the wake of Trump's threats towards Greenland is the key issues around which joiners coalesce, while questions of sovereignty and retaining control of lucrative resources like fishing rights and critical mineral resources lead the no voters. The Chartered Institute of Export & International Trade
• A Europeanized NATO would be pumping enough resources into military modernization and acquisition to develop true complementary areas of excellence that might even exceed America's in some ways, strengthening the overall Western alliance vis-a-vis Russia and China. Brookings
• Canada's new government will support strategic, pre-development projects in the Labrador region, funded under the First and Last Mile Fund through Natural Resources Canada. Prime Minister of Canada
• Demand for compute resources is so strong that Tencent could recover its depreciation costs almost immediately if it rented its infrastructure. theregister

Last updated: 16 September 2026