The microchip has changed the world since its invention in the 1950s. But after Covid caused global demand to plunge, chip manufacturers are now finding it hard to keep up with a sharp spike in orders as the world starts to emerge from the virus

The Chinese Communist Party has just introduced a three-children policy for the world’s second biggest economy. But a societal imbalance and the fact the country has more men than women bode ill for the superpower’s future

The International Energy Agency proposes the end of fossil fuel usage, but many of the world’s biggest oil-producing countries are also its poorest and most unstable, and least prepared for change

A WarnerMedia-Discovery deal puts the spotlight on streaming wars as around 100 platforms vie for the attention of often fickle audiences

After all the toiling of the central banks to pump up prices a little, things are revving up rather more dramatically than they’d expected – with worrying consequences for all

If workers end up in the future doing from home the jobs they did in offices up to last year, it opens up a fundamental debate on what exactly such a place is

For all its modernity, the country’s corporate sector is stuck in a peculiarly Korean time warp, and this is especially true of Samsung, which is now too big for the Lee family who controls it

Last week’s disastrous launch of the European Super League was yet another instance of how the world’s biggest sport has become enslaved by its own popularity

The scandal currently consuming David Cameron is an example of what can happen when a financier with a big idea encounters a captive audience unable to figure it out

The early days of the Covid-19 pandemic were dominated by loudmouths, incompetents and populists. Then the serious people took over

The world’s top lenders assure us they’re stronger than they were in 2008. But if Credit Suisse and Nomura can get caught on the losing side of a little forced equity-selling, what else are they doing wrong?

The special purpose acquisition company phenomenon is an asset class in search of assets and its emergence is hardly surprising, given the IPO market’s structural problems, but these issues must be sorted out once and for all

The Collison brothers now control the most valuable private company in Silicon Valley, with Stripe estimated to be worth $95 billion. But every new slate of investors makes their lives a little more complicated

The2010 debacle was chastening for many, but not at Davy, it seems, and the crisis now engulfing the firm is both depressing and enraging

The exit of Ulster Bank from the market has been followed by the resuscitation of a terrible idea which history tells us is not viable

Nigerian economist Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has her work cut out to tackle the current backlash against the principles for which the World Trade Organisation stands

Italy’s afflictions are often filtered through the lens of its enormous public debt and zero-growth economy. Yet its problem is more insidious – that politics does not offer solutions

Cryptocurrencies have their zealous admirers, including the Tesla chief, but critics insist they have no practical uses and facilitate online fraud and tax evasion

The Amazon founder is stepping down as ceo to devote more time to the Washington Post and his ambitions of space flight, yet he will still monitor his successor closely

Climate change is now about business rather than emotion and Exxon-Mobil must reinvent itself if it is to catch up with its rivals in the transition to clean energy