Global foreign direct investment climbed 6% to $1.6 trillion in 2025, ending a two-year decline, but the headline figure masks a deep structural shift. According to the UN Trade and Development agency (UNCTAD), strategic sectors — artificial intelligence infrastructure, semiconductors, critical minerals and energy-transition technologies — accounted for 44% of the value of new greenfield projects, up from just 16% in 2020. The growth was driven overwhelmingly by data centres, oil and gas, and chip fabrication, while investment in renewable energy, general infrastructure and manufacturing contracted. The world’s top 20 host economies captured more than 80% of all inflows, and low-income and lower-middle-income countries received only about 10% of strategic-sector investment between 2020 and 2025.

Viewed from Geneva, the recovery is narrow and fragile. Developing Asia remained the largest recipient region, attracting $644 billion, but the balance within the region is shifting. India recorded a 44% jump in inflows to $39 billion, moving to 11th place globally, as Alphabet’s $14.5 billion data-centre commitment and Polish firm Hynfra’s $4.1 billion green-energy project underscored its growing role in digital infrastructure and advanced manufacturing. The UAE attracted a record $48.2 billion, climbing to ninth place worldwide, with manufacturing, telecoms and real estate dominating greenfield projects. Africa’s inflows fell to $70 billion from an exceptional $94 billion in 2024, yet remained one-third above the long-term average, with Egypt drawing $15 billion and resource-rich least-developed countries receiving $33 billion, largely in energy and minerals. Bangladesh saw a 45% increase to $1.78 billion, but the total remained below that of Ghana and Uganda, and analysts in Dhaka noted that most of the rise came from reinvested earnings rather than new productive capacity.

The concentration of capital in AI and digital infrastructure is drawing comparisons with earlier technology booms. The Bank for International Settlements in Basel warned that the sustainability of AI-related investments “deserves close attention,” noting that historical episodes from canal mania to the dot-com bubble shared a pattern of genuine technological breakthroughs attracting capital in excess of what commercial returns could justify. The race between OpenAI and Anthropic to launch initial public offerings — with valuations approaching $1 trillion — will test whether public markets are willing to price AI firms on current earnings or on expectations of future dominance. Meanwhile, the World Intellectual Property Organization reported that global investment in intangible assets surpassed $10 trillion for the first time, growing more than three times faster than tangible investment, with India, the Philippines and Brazil among the emerging economies recording strong growth.

Beneath the investment numbers, labour markets are holding up but real wages are under pressure. OECD-wide employment reached a record 670 million in May 2026, and the unemployment rate stood at 4.9%, projected to remain near that level through 2027. Yet real wages remained below their pre-2021 levels in roughly one-third of member countries, and this year’s energy shock is expected to squeeze purchasing power further. In Mexico, fixed investment grew 5.1% year-on-year in April, but the expansion was driven by residential construction, while investment in machinery and non-residential construction barely moved, and purchases of domestically produced capital goods fell 10.6% — a pattern that economists in Mexico City say signals a recovery without reindustrialisation. The next milestone comes in October, when governments, investors and development partners gather in Doha for UNCTAD’s World Investment Forum to confront the central question: how to channel a more selective and concentrated investment landscape into broader development gains.