Agathe Demarais

As tariffs hit their limits Trump could turn to the financial, energy and digital fields to pressure Europe - in our @ecfr.eu policy brief @tobiasgehrke.bsky.social, @jitorreblanca.eurosky.social and I sketch out three such scenarios, complete with response options for Europe ecfr.eu/publication/...

Russia's oil receipts are at record-highs, but this is not great news for Moscow • Besides high oil prices, huge exports of crude reflect lack of domestic refining capacity amid Ukrainian drone strikes • China and India absorb >90% of Russia's seaborne oil exports www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Just 8% of Germans think Trump has changed the US for the better. Only 1 in 10 say the US and German govts still "share the same fundamental values," although 1 in 3 said most Americans and Germans do. More than half said a US vacation was "unimaginable" now www.spiegel.de/ausland/us-m...

We're unable to measure our immune system status in the clinic. But that is about to change. Our @nature.com piece today. nature.com/articles/d41...

Like the US, China is racing to build AI data centres • China has 24 GW of operational data centre computing capacity, less than half of America's 56GW • Self-hosted, open-weights Chinese models often require less computing than American closed models, giving China an edge www.ft.com/content/e1dd...

"when United Airlines began printing its in-flight magazine on lighter paper to save a single gramme, the fuel cost saving across its fleet was close to $300,000 a year". That is a phenomenal fact. www.ft.com/content/2f16...

Anthropic has filed for IPO, AI industry’s gigantic debts are making investors increasingly nervous • America's AI-related firms have borrowed around US$850bn this year, or four times the 2023 amount • Together their balance-sheets carry more than US$3trn of debt www.economist.com/business/202...

Russian shipments of diesel to the US are odd, considering ongoing diesel shortage in Russia • Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries are weighing on crude refining • Russia's diesel production is down by 467k barrels per day, or nearly half of global crunch www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

"There continues to be substantial increases in AI adoption, but it is overwhelmingly for low-cost AI. [...] The low-cost models produced by China are good enough for most users. And even if users opt for the somewhat pricier U.S. versions, they are still not likely paying huge sums."

Why don't we just sell missiles directly to Putin, and cut out the middleman? www.reuters.com/business/ene...

China's demographics look increasingly like Japan's • By 2060 people aged 60+ could make up nearly half of China's population, up from ~20% currently • Beijing is betting on robot workers, but poor demographic outlook makes catchup with US an increasingly remote prospect www.ft.com/content/512e...

Europe has a (really) long way to go before it can escape reliance on America in space • The EU's biggest gap lies in satellite internet, where SpaceX has helped America to rocket ahead • Emergence of other US firms, like Amazon's Leo, could widen America’s lead www.economist.com/europe/2026/...

🇺🇸🤝🇷🇺 Trump può fare offerte a Mosca. Ma non tutto ciò che mette sul tavolo è suo. 🇪🇺 Riserve russe, asset energetici e Nord Stream danno all’Europa più leva di quanto sembri. Ora deve usarla. ✒️ @agathedemarais.com e Jim O’Brien buff.ly/GhZfbQq

First-of-Its-Kind Vaccine Ushers in New Hope for Cancer Patients. Beyond melanoma, scientists are studying cancer vaccines for glioblastoma, pancreatic cancer and more, by Nina Agrawal www.nytimes.com/2026/10/23/w... via @nytimes.com

Benchmark of 40 econometric tasks in Stata, R, and Python. For each task, two leading models write a script, as a chatbot that never runs it and as an agent that runs and revises it. Letting the models run their code raises the share of correct results from 79% to 97% cepr.org/index%2ephp/...

Read this

A propos of this: Europe must escape its reliance on American satellites economist.com/leaders/2026...

apply this aesthetic to a remix of the ASML EUV machine set, and we'll be cooking.

In past weeks Trump has lifted some sanctions on Moscow and offered the Kremlin lucrative business deals - in our fresh @ecfr.eu piece, Jim O'Brien and I outline three concrete steps that Europeans can take to derail US-Russia plans (spoiler: the EU has all the tools at hand) ecfr.eu/article/trum...

"Major US banks are detecting ​unauthorized third-party AI ‌agents operating inside customer accounts, ​with some agents ​attempting to take ⁠actions that appear ​to be independent ​of user instructions, Axios reported on Thursday, ​citing people ​familiar with the matter."

In past weeks Trump has lifted some sanctions on Moscow and offered the Kremlin lucrative business deals - in our fresh @ecfr.eu piece, Jim O'Brien and I outline three concrete steps that Europeans can take to derail US-Russia plans (spoiler: the EU has all the tools at hand) ecfr.eu/article/trum...

If a French employer wants to increase the take-home pay of of a worker on the minimum wage by €100 a month, it will cost them €440 (per INSEE). Startling statistic in this excellent column on France's dire situation by @lionellaurent.bsky.social. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

China is doubling down on deep-science startups • US still holds the largest number of deep-science startups, but China's total is growing fast • At over US$1trn, China's annual R&D spending is now above that of America's www.economist.com/graphic-deta...

Data suggest AI rollout has huge impact on call centre employment • Employment in call centres has dropped by 5% globally compared to late 2023 peak • Analysis holds not only in aggregate and high-income countries, but also in most lower- and middle-income countries www.ft.com/content/d641...

1/ Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian data centres are having a severe impact due to the highly centralised nature of Russia's digital economy, in contrast to Ukraine's decentralised approach. Fears are growing that it could cause a banking crisis. ⬇️ bsky.app/profile/jayi...

Interestingly blockchain analytics firm Elliptic appears to confirm there's a drop in A7A5 transactions?

China is going all in on electrification to power EVs and data centres • Electricity accounts for about one-third of energy use, up from around 10% in early 2000s • Regions in western China that produce more power than they can consume are becoming data-centre hubs www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

Great stuff from the Telegraph. archive.ph/r2nTA

China's official figures suggest investment in manufacturing and infrastructure has plunged • Beijing's data typically paint a rosy picture, fuelling suspicion among analysts • This time round the figures are suspicious because they look too bleak to be true www.economist.com/briefing/202...

Chinese tech firms raise far less money than their US competitors • Data show how Beijing's diffusion-first AI strategy could be more sustainable than US race to frontier • Beijing sees AI like the internet: a tool to embed in economy in bid to achieve broader goals www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Forecasts about the impact of AI on employment and wages vary wildly • So far headline employment rates in OECD economies stand at near record-highs • However, data suggest cross-country slowdown in entry-level hiring for tech-related jobs www.ft.com/content/8f78...

i feel like we haven't heard the end of this scandal

Maersk has for 10 years tried to become and increasing integrated logistics company. But this year the company realised it really needs to compete again on the shipping side even though the number of container ships on order is near all-time highs: www.ft.com/content/bcf1...

They must be absolutely knackered.

KAL's cartoon in The Economist this week

America's approach to the AI race rests on a basic idea: if US labs do not double down, their Chinese competitors will pull ahead and reach AGI first - for @foreignpolicy.com I explore how Beijing could be running another, diffusion-first race that has no off switch foreignpolicy.com/2026/10/07/c...

A Berlin-based search engine used by govt is dropping its French AI partner, Mistral, in favour of open-source models, including Chinese “We are disappointed with the quality of Mistral,” Ecosia CEO Christian Kroll said, stating its models are “a year behind” competition

Beijing measures the success of its AI rollout in terms of adoption and diffusion across its economy and beyond. This has a key safety implication: it has no off switch, writes columnist @agathedemarais.com. foreignpolicy.com/2026/10/07/c...

Price of Chinese lithium futures dropped by around a quarter over past month • Price slump reflects growing concerns about flagging demand in the medium run • Like many Chinese industries, battery-makers have built more capacity than market can absorb www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Credit to the US for making the point the conference was trying to make about US foreign interference in European democracies for them, and bringing more attention to the conference and its themes than they could have possibly hoped for. www.politico.com/news/2026/10...

America's approach to the AI race rests on a basic idea: if US labs do not double down, their Chinese competitors will pull ahead and reach AGI first - for @foreignpolicy.com I explore how Beijing could be running another, diffusion-first race that has no off switch foreignpolicy.com/2026/10/07/c...

Majority of Britons regret Brexit, but support for rejoining the EU is not a given • In September YouGov poll found that 59% of Britons favour rejoining the EU, vs. 32% against • Yet support for rejoining EU drops to 35% if Britain had to adopt euro and join Schengen area www.ft.com/content/3d43...

Elon Musk's America PAC is quietly donating to the most consequential races of November's midterms, and @wired.com is tracking all of it - in real time. amazing work from @dell.bsky.social, who built this, and big lifts from @hugolowell.bsky.social, @dmehro.bsky.social, and @regret.bsky.social:

Russia's draft budget for 2027-29 suggests Moscow is preparing for many more years of war • In 2027 defence spending could total US$205bn, up 40% from 2026 and 380% from 2021 • Financing remains open question as Moscow has exhausted politically affordable money pots www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

"Information from Russia has been incomplete, confusing, and contradictory." My colleague @martinenserink.bsky.social on what we know so far about the possible plague death in Russia and the implications. 🧪

China is going all in on Six networks infrastructure plan • Plan focuses on water, electricity, computing (data centres), communications (5G/6G), logistics and urban pipelines • US$3.7trn financing comes from central government, SOEs and local government bonds www.economist.com/briefing/202...

High tax burden complicates France's difficult budget equation • Further raising taxes would be tricky; at 44% of GDP, tax burden is 10 percentage points higher than OECD average • Almost a quarter of public spending goes to pensions, but hints of reform trigger protests www.ft.com/content/9b25...

US leads race for frontier AI, but not by much • All frontier models since 2023 have been American, but Chinese models lag just four months behind • China has diffusion-first AI strategy that comes with no off-switch for open-weight models, making it hard to stop www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...