Foreword

Geopolitics is re-shaping the geography of innovation. In 2025, countries compete for technological superiority, splitting the world back into spheres of influence. In a way, the 2020s are the new 1970s. Nations have restored Cold War aims: to outcompete rivals by appropriating the resources necessary to develop critical technologies with strategic autonomy.

There are, however, significant differences between now and the Cold War era. First, the portfolio of technologies considered critical to national interests is broader and deeper, ranging from advanced artificial intelligence to quantum technologies and biotechnologies.

Second, the supply chain necessary to construct these technologies is inherently global. Protectionist strategies to re-shore production clash against the networked nature of innovation. Today, "no country alone can make an iPhone", as economist Eric Beinhocker put it. Deep Tech presents even greater barriers to autonomous development, given the complexity and distribution of inputs it requires, from rare minerals to skilled labor.

Finally, with traditional alliances fading, the global race for competitiveness is contested by more players with their own interests. Today’s world has more than two poles of influence. These new geometries of power leave room for new players to affirm themselves on the global stage. Latin America is one such player.

Latin America has the resources to move from a battleground for technological appropriation to a strategic actor in tech-driven geopolitics.

Latin America has traditionally had a passive role in the development of the global technology industry. It has traded at a deficit with bigger partners, serving skills, resources, and market opportunities at a discount, an effect widely known as the "Latin American Discount." It is a function of the institutional fragility of individual countries in the region and of the region’s fragmentation, which prevents it from leveraging its size and competitive advantages as a bloc. Foreign investors cannot value opportunities at their actual worth when the context is plagued by uncertain rules, frequent corruption, and inadequate public-sector de-risking of emerging markets.

Yet current changes in geopolitics can shift the position of Latin America from a Deep Tech vassal to a stronghold. This is the thesis behind the Latin American Dynamism Project: to accelerate the development and investment of frontier technologies in Latin America. The region is home to 42% of the world’s biodiversity; controls the lithium triangle, which contains 58% of global reserves; possesses abundant clean-energy potential, critical for scaling compute-intensive industries; and benefits from a booming nearshoring trend. With a GDP of roughly USD 6 trillion, almost double that of India but with barely half the population, the region combines large-market scale with significant availability for greenfield development.

What Latin America lacks is the network effects, in infrastructure, capital, and human talent, that can catalyse its potential into strategic autonomy, founded upon technological competitiveness. Realizing this potential will require coordinated action across the region: no single country has the scale, resources, and institutional reach to compete alone in the global Deep Tech race. The LADP addresses this gap by providing unprecedented insights to public and private decision-makers.

This report shows regional and global decision-makers a path to making LATAM an autonomous and reputable player in the global race for technological competitiveness.

This inaugural LADP report reveals more than a set of surprising data, which shows that LATAM is already a theatre for overlooked inventions. It shows regional and global decision-makers a path to making LATAM an autonomous and reputable player in the global race for technological competitiveness. Some countries, such as China, have long understood this, undertaking for a decade now policies of appropriation of natural resources. Others, from Latin American countries to traditional Western allies, have been slower to realise the potential of the region as more than the sum of its parts.

We publish these insights with the ambition to catalyze conversations, communities, and ecosystems that accelerate the transition of Latin America from a battleground for technological appropriation to a strategic actor in tech-driven geopolitics.

# Acknowledgments

This report was authored by Claudio Cifuentes Lobo, Marcus Alburez, Leonardo Quattrucci, Verónica Jijón and Said Saillant, with Nick Cohen and Fausto Carbajal Glass providing essential editorial guidance. Their combined expertise in data analysis, regional policy, and ecosystem development underpins every section of this publication. Production, design, data science, and communications were handled by Lucía Fenoglio, Solange Rodríguez, Milene Broche, Sebastián Díaz, Agustina Sojit, and Marco Tebélan.

To shape our findings, we spoke with almost 100 contributors and partnered with 17 organizations, venture-capital executives, policy-makers and ecosystem leaders, who generously shared their time and candid perspectives. This report was made possible by a grant from the International Strategy Forum, founded by Dr. Eric Schmidt, former CEO and Chairman of Google.⁰