Top 25 Trends
How the 25 trends with the highest attention intensity in the GCC now have moved over the last quarter, year or three years. Each point's rank is by attention intensity over several weeks, so a single busy week does not decide it.
Top 25 trends by attention intensity, GCC
Each trend's rank in each of the last 13 weeks, by attention intensity over the 4 weeks to that week. Points are labelled by the Saturday their last week ends; a rank below 25 sits in the lane at the foot. Point at a line for its rank and intensity, or choose a domain below to bring its trends forward.
Source: Global Institute for National Capability, GINC Trends, from Wikipedia reading and Google searching to the week ending 7 Nov. CC BY 4.0.
| Trend | 15 Aug | 22 Aug | 29 Aug | 5 Sept | 12 Sept | 19 Sept | 26 Sept | 3 Oct | 10 Oct | 17 Oct | 24 Oct | 31 Oct | 7 Nov |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contested maritime access | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Quantum computing | 9 | 11 | 9 | 12 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 12 | 11 | 9 | 14 | 5 | 2 |
| Civil defence revival | 6 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 14 | 17 | 19 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Foundational learning deficits | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Immigration enforcement | 5 | 4 | 57 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 19 | 18 | 13 | 17 | 4 | 5 |
| AI-written software | 12 | 12 | 10 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 13 | 25 | 26 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 6 |
| Weakening multilateralism | 7 | 10 | 15 | 17 | 21 | 24 | 25 | 132 | 131 | 109 | 128 | 9 | 7 |
| Central bank independence | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 7 | 9 | 79 | 90 | 84 | 88 | 15 | 8 |
| Illicit finance | 123 | 108 | 16 | 15 | 12 | 10 | 52 | 20 | 20 | 17 | 22 | 7 | 9 |
| Institutional trust decline | 8 | 8 | 4 | 5 | 10 | 9 | 10 | 14 | 14 | 10 | 13 | 11 | 10 |
| Deepfakes & synthetic media | 10 | 9 | 6 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 8 | 26 | 25 | 21 | 6 | 10 | 11 |
| Tariff escalation | 13 | 15 | 19 | 19 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 19 | 19 | 121 | 19 | 12 |
| De-dollarisation pressure | 86 | 90 | 95 | 100 | 77 | 49 | 33 | 37 | 35 | 30 | 5 | 8 | 13 |
| AI agents | 73 | 75 | 82 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 5 | 21 | 18 | 8 | 14 | 14 |
| Private military & proxy forces | 11 | 13 | 12 | 14 | 18 | 22 | 23 | 142 | 137 | 26 | 33 | 12 | 15 |
| LNG trade expansion | 4 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 161 | 247 | 247 | 248 | 248 | 248 | 136 | 22 | 16 |
| Global South coalitions | 18 | 19 | 13 | 16 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 15 | 19 | 16 | 17 |
| Corruption & state capture | 16 | 17 | 18 | 22 | 23 | 25 | 26 | 138 | 134 | 112 | 130 | 21 | 18 |
| Drone warfare | 20 | 24 | 24 | 26 | 29 | 33 | 59 | 144 | 135 | 115 | 29 | 18 | 19 |
| Missile proliferation & defence | 94 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 243 | 242 | 232 | 32 | 20 | 23 | 13 | 20 |
| Fuel supply & refining | 14 | 16 | 21 | 140 | 128 | 50 | 41 | 44 | 44 | 45 | 41 | 31 | 21 |
| Space militarisation | 76 | 83 | 94 | 102 | 103 | 124 | 157 | 230 | 231 | 225 | 234 | 27 | 22 |
| Cost of living squeeze | 23 | 21 | 17 | 21 | 20 | 23 | 20 | 36 | 36 | 31 | 38 | 20 | 23 |
| Sovereign debt restructuring | 41 | 30 | 28 | 30 | 34 | 40 | 60 | 147 | 151 | 65 | 12 | 23 | 24 |
| Sovereign wealth funds | 187 | 47 | 49 | 33 | 38 | 46 | 49 | 146 | 146 | 130 | 36 | 25 | 25 |
| Urban heat & cooling | 25 | 25 | 22 | 20 | 19 | 21 | 24 | 137 | 140 | 124 | 131 | 169 | 26 |
| Commercial property repricing | 22 | 23 | 26 | 29 | 27 | 29 | 39 | 33 | 33 | 28 | 27 | 30 | 28 |
| Biometric identification | 17 | 18 | 14 | 18 | 16 | 15 | 16 | 31 | 43 | 110 | 62 | 34 | 31 |
| Crypto-asset mainstreaming | 19 | 14 | 11 | 11 | 13 | 13 | 17 | 30 | 30 | 29 | 34 | 26 | 32 |
| Misinformation & disinformation | 15 | 20 | 23 | 25 | 22 | 14 | 11 | 7 | 6 | 27 | 32 | 33 | 33 |
| International student flows | 24 | 26 | 29 | 28 | 25 | 20 | 14 | 9 | 7 | 6 | 10 | 28 | 39 |
| Ransomware & cyber extortion | 21 | 22 | 27 | 32 | 68 | 47 | 51 | 75 | 54 | 58 | 53 | 38 | 70 |
Top Trends
The trends with the highest attention intensity in the GCC over the last 52 weeks, of the 250 read there, and each capability domain's average. 1× is the typical trend there.
Highest attention intensity
209×
#155×
#249×
#344×
#441×
#536×
#630×
#726×
#824×
#922×
#10By capability domain
The average attention intensity of each domain's trends.
13×
5.5×
5.1×
4.1×
4.1×
3.4×
3.1×
2.7×
2.7×
Rising and Falling
The trends whose attention index in the GCC rose or fell most over the last 52 weeks, against the 52 weeks before.
Rising most
+2149%
+1120%
+899%
+853%
+575%
+479%
+427%
+360%
+317%
+280%
Falling most
−93%
−93%
−89%
−87%
−84%
−83%
−82%
−80%
−78%
−78%
Attention Index over time
The 5 trends with the highest attention intensity in the GCC over the last year: their attention index week by week, a four-week rolling average, on a log scale. 100 is the typical trend there.
Top Trends by Capability Domain
Each capability domain's five trends with the highest attention intensity in the GCC over the last 52 weeks.
Hard
Soft
Economic
Similar Blocs by Trend Attention
The blocs whose attention across all 250 trends is most like this bloc's. A bloc's attention intensity for each trend is the average of its member countries'; over the period it is put on a log scale and standardised, so that what is compared is which trends the bloc follows more and which less, not how high its figures run. Two blocs are then compared trend by trend, every trend counting equally, by the distance between them: 100 is an identical profile and 0 the exact opposite.
Month
67
65
62
61
59
58
57
56
56
55
Quarter
69
69
64
63
60
60
59
58
58
57
Year
70
69
65
64
61
61
59
59
59
58
Attention intensity is a trend’s attention in the GCC as a multiple of the typical trend’s there, and the attention index is the same figure × 100. A region's or bloc's is the average of its member countries', each counted equally. How it is measured.