Rest of World

3 days ago | restofworld.org | Stephanie Wangari |Gayathri Vaidyanathan

Firms that provide outsourced digital labor for big tech companies tend to be secretive. They are often bound by legal contracts that limit what they can say, allowing tech companies to distance themselves legally and ethically from their workers, experts told Rest of World. “This creates a circle of invisibility around this work,” Antonio Casilli, a sociologist at Polytechnic Institute of Paris who studies the human contributors to artificial intelligence, told Rest of World.

6 days ago | restofworld.org | Lam Le |Jane Seidel

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ongoing tour of Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia has drawn U.S. ire as he promotes free trade in a region facing some of the stiffest American tariffs. During Xi’s stop in Vietnam, the two countries signed agreements on supply chains and a joint railway.

1 week ago | restofworld.org | Damilare Dosunmu

In the sprawling electronic market of Lagos’ Computer Village, an item is flying off the shelves: the Starlink kit. These satellite dishes, with their distinctive white faces and plug-and-play simplicity, represent more than just easy internet availability in Nigeria. They symbolize a technological coup in Africa’s most populous nation, where terrestrial broadband or wireless options are unreliable or inaccessible.

1 week ago | restofworld.org | Kate Bubacz

The rise of DeepSeek has reenergized China’s artificial intelligence industry, drawing billions of dollars in state funding and a bigger push toward self-sufficiency. Its success has also sparked a race among startups to build products and services on top of its high-performing open-source technology, even as the country’s tech giants have rushed out competing AI models.

2 weeks ago | restofworld.org | Lam Le |Mehboob Jeelani

Vietnam remains on edge, even though Donald Trump has put sweeping tariffs on hold, granting the Southeast Asian country a 90-day window for negotiations. As Trump announced 46% tariffs on Vietnamese imports last week — the highest among Southeast Asia’s six largest economies — the country’s manufacturing hub of Bac Ninh was gripped by uncertainty.