Geopolitics is no longer a background variable. It is one of the dominant force-field factors shaping global markets, capital flows and the trajectory of entire industries. According to the Adams Street Global Investor Survey, more than 80% of institutional investors say geopolitical factors will influence their investment approaches this year, with U.S.-China tensions and geopolitical policy risks cited as major considerations. Similarly, a BCG investor survey found that 51% of global investors now list geopolitical risk among their top three concerns, an increase of 15 percentage points from prior years.
In Investing in Revolutions, I describe how transformative technology waves collide with macroeconomic, regulatory and geopolitical pressures to define which technologies thrive and which fail. In 2026, that collision has become impossible to ignore.
The U.S.-Venezuela confrontation, China’s accelerating semiconductor independence and renewed strategic interest in the Arctic are not isolated headlines. They are signals of a new macro environment in which power, technology and resources are becoming deeply intertwined. The investment landscape has changed fundamentally, and investors who continue treating geopolitics as sporadic noise are flying blind.
The real story behind Venezuela
What’s unfolding in Venezuela is not simply a regional conflict. It is a vivid demonstration of how strategic resources are once again instruments of global power.
Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves. As the U.S. simultaneously shifts toward next-generation energy infrastructure and navigates competition with China, securing access to traditional hydrocarbons remains strategically essential. Oil is not just fuel; it is leverage in a fragmented world where energy supply affects diplomacy, inflation, military strategy and technological adoption.
Nations are reweaponizing resources. Compute capacity, chips, energy and minerals have all become a strategic asset. Today it’s Venezuela. Tomorrow it may be another country whose natural resources become a geopolitical flashpoint. Investors must stop viewing these events as anomalies. They are early chapters in a larger story.
Greenland was no joke
When U.S. President Donald Trump first floated the idea of buying Greenland, many saw it as political theatre. For investors, the motive, whether access to critical minerals or a simple power play, matters far less than the signal it sends. Moves like this introduce uncertainty, trigger geopolitical resentment and reshape expectations in ways that directly affect global markets.
In today’s markets, the real impact comes from the second- and third-order effects: uncertainty, instability and geopolitical resentment.
Yes, Greenland holds rare earths, graphite, uranium and a strategic Arctic position. But the deeper point is that actions like this reveal how geopolitical moves, whether serious or symbolic, can reorder expectations, create strategic miscalculations and shift capital flows.
China’s tech stack
Investors still underestimate the extent to which China is building a full parallel technological ecosystem designed to rival and eventually decouple from the U.S.
China already produces nearly 70% of global rare earth minerals and controls roughly 90% of their refining. It is scaling “dark factories” run entirely by automation. It is building large language models optimized for domestic chips. And as recent reporting shows, it is rapidly reverse-engineering extreme ultraviolet semiconductor capabilities, which was considered generations out of reach.
This matters because 2026 is shaping up to be the year the world splits into competing technology ecosystems, forcing countries, corporations and investors to choose a side. If China succeeds in accelerating domestic chip production and begins exporting below-market alternatives, it will not simply compete with U.S. and Asian suppliers. It could directly destabilize U.S. technology markets by undercutting the very supply chain that supports American AI leadership.
Geopolitics is now embedded in the core architecture of global markets. What once appeared as an occasional tail risk has become a first-order variable shaping every sector linked to energy, materials, infrastructure, technology and national security.
This is precisely how force-field factors operate. They are the underlying pressures that determine which technologies gain traction, which markets expand or contract and which companies are positioned to endure and scale through structural change.
Geopolitics and technology
Five considerations that may become increasingly important as geopolitics and technology converge:
- Look at assets through the lens of necessity, not novelty: The technologies that matter most are the ones that depend on scarce inputs and fragile supply chains. Compute, minerals and energy are no longer background variables. They are the new gatekeepers. Understanding how these constraints shape innovation is becoming part of responsible investing.
- Watch how geopolitical alignment reshapes industries: If the world continues to divide into competing tech ecosystems, some industries will find themselves squeezed by new barriers while others get lifted by national priorities. The real question for investors is simple: how resilient is a business model when the world stops being fully connected.
- Accept that risk increasingly comes from outside the market: Sanctions, export controls and diplomatic shifts now move markets as fast as earnings reports. Investors may need to account for political and strategic shocks as seriously as they consider credit cycles or rate moves.
- Prioritize supply chain durability over efficiency: The age of optimizing for the lowest-cost supplier is over. In a fractured global environment, reliability becomes its own competitive advantage. Companies that treat supply chain stability as strategic infrastructure, not back-office optimization, are better positioned for the next decade.
- Pay attention when alternative systems emerge in moments of strain: Periods of geopolitical stress accelerate adoption of new financial and technological rails. Tokenization, decentralized finance, sovereign compute and parallel payment systems do not just solve technical problems. They often emerge because existing structures can no longer absorb the pressure. They become both innovations and geopolitical responses.
The interplay of technology, geopolitics, resources and national strategy is no longer academic. Investors can no longer rely on models built for a globalized world with stable supply chains and neutral infrastructure. The landscape is shifting. The force-field factors are stronger. The stakes are higher.
To navigate the decade ahead, investors must start viewing geopolitics the way nations do: As a determinant of power, prosperity and competitive advantage. We are entering a period where the global order, technological revolutions and capital markets are converging.
Understanding that convergence is not optional. It is the new baseline for intelligent investing.
Tal Elyashiv is founder of SPiCE VC and author of Investing in Revolutions.