How the Battle for Value Is Reshaping the Global Economy
We live in an age where digital services dominate headlines, valuations, and investor decks.
But beneath the surface, a quieter battle rages — between tangible goods and intangible services, between the real economy and the cloud economy.
Younger generations build empires from laptops, working from cafés, while supply chains, mines, and foundries remain invisible in the background.
But if there’s one thing I’ve learned after four decades in global industry, it’s this:
Imagine a 25-year-old young man.
He works in digital marketing, lives in cafés with fast Wi-Fi, manages global campaigns from his phone — and has never seen a production line. His most valuable asset? A notebook. His products? Intangible.
Now imagine another young man.
In the early 2000s, his dream was to work in a Nokia, Philips, or Motorola factory. He proudly wore a helmet, moved between heavy machinery, and smelled oil and solder. He left his shift with the feeling of having made something.
Both stories are real. And both reflect a world in dispute:
the world between what we can touch and what we simply subscribe to,
between manufacturing and algorithms,
between tangible assets and digital services.
🌐 The economy shifted — and I watched it happen
In the early 2000s, the U.S. chose to outsource part of its manufacturing and accelerate its transition to a service-based economy — built on software, platforms, algorithms, and brands. What seemed like a tactical move became a global revolution.
This movement seemed brilliant.
- Apple became the most valuable company in the world without producing a single iPhone.
- Meta grew by connecting people without making hardware.
- Netflix prospered with a catalog and no inventory.
Meanwhile, Western companies — including ones I helped lead — relocated factories from the U.S. to Mexico, from Finland to China, from Europe to India. I took part in the migration of R&D centers from Eastern Europe to Southeast Asia. It was a time of extreme efficiency, where production happened wherever it was cheapest and fastest.
And China, until then “the world’s factory,” went further:
It absorbed IP, trained engineers, built infrastructure, and created industrial scale that is hard to replicate.
📦 Apple: the ultimate symbol of separation between value and production
Apple is perhaps the clearest example of this new logic:
- Design, software, strategy, and branding developed in Silicon Valley
- Physical production outsourced to factories in China and other Asian countries
And even with this geographical division, more than 90% of the value generated remains in the U.S. — concentrated in intellectual property, digital ecosystems, and service monetization.
Meanwhile, factories like Foxconn operate on low margins, high pressure, and little decision-making power.
The product is tangible.
But the value is intangible — and flows through fiber cables to Cupertino.
This model inspired an entire generation of companies and investors. But it also created asymmetries that are now being questioned — even by those who created it.
💸 The invisible cost of transformation
China paid a high price:
- Inhuman shifts,
- Systemic pollution,
- Workers under pressure,
- And an entire society accelerated in the name of global competitiveness.
All of this happened with a firm grip and under a well-coordinated long-term strategy by the State.
It wasn’t just a market response — it was a deliberate industrial policy: attract production, dominate processes, and build technological power with scale and pragmatism.
As Jack Ma once said: “The U.S. kept 80% of the profits, but China kept the knowledge.”
Today, the U.S. wants part of the manufacturing back. But not for the jobs:
They want control over semiconductors, batteries, AI, energy.
The dispute is not about volume — it’s about sovereignty.
But now, instead of investing in competitiveness, the West responds with tariffs.
And tariffs don’t create real advantage — they create distortion.
The Financial Times and McKinsey warned in 2025: uncontrolled protectionism affects global supply chains, increases costs, and disrupts the flows that keep innovation accessible. Who pays the bill? The most vulnerable: emerging countries, small industries, workers.
🧩 The modern paradox: billion-dollar software, but dependent on the physical world
The new economy looks 100% digital, but it heavily depends on the physical:
- No chips, no AI.
- No energy, no cloud.
- No rare earths, no battery.
- No logistics, no e-commerce.
The report The Tangible Tech Economy (McKinsey, Apr/2025) concluded that sustainable growth requires reintegrating tangible assets into digital ecosystems. Because even if profit lies in services, the infrastructure that sustains them still comes from the real world.
🧠 Industry 5.0: the possible reconnection
We are entering a new cycle: Industry 5.0.
An era where technology and humanity walk together again.
The European Union and the World Economic Forum already define this phase as centered on:
- Mass customization
- Human–machine collaboration
- Sustainability and well-being at the heart of production
More than efficiency, this new industry seeks balance:
Between machine and human.
Between automation and purpose.
Between the factory floor and the C-level.
🔁 A new cycle begins: from hype to real impact
We live today in the euphoria of Artificial Intelligence.
Big multinationals announce agents that can do everything, supported by mega data centers, trillion-parameter models, and promises of total disruption.
But while Silicon Valley projects the future in the cloud, the factory floor, the agricultural cooperative, the rural judge, the owner of a family-owned metal shop — they still live in reality.
Recent studies show that less than 12% of small and medium-sized businesses in emerging economies adopted any form of AI by 2025 (McKinsey/IFC, 2025).
Among family businesses, the number is even lower — dropping below 6% when we talk about real use on the operational floor.
On the farm where the grains are produced, family groups are intimidated by AI language and by the cost of adopting it.
And it is precisely there that the next cycle is born.
Offline Artificial Intelligence, local, lightweight, designed to solve real problems with real efficiency.
Outside the hype. Outside the bubble.
Close to the need. Close to those who operate.
Because in the end, the innovation that matters isn’t the one that dazzles on stage —
but the one that upgrades the field, the factory, and the daily lives of those who keep the system running.
The world turns.
And those who’ve lived through cycles know: this time, it’s not about disruption. It’s about direction.
📣 Algorithms may move markets.
But it’s still steel, chips, and grain that move the world.
If your company is navigating this shift, let’s talk.
The next transformation won’t be built in the cloud alone.
