The Coming Wave: AI, Power, and Our Future

by Mustafa Suleyman

From the Mongols to the Mughals, for more than a thousand years the most powerful force in Asia was a traditional empire. By 1800 that had changed. It was rather a private company, owned by a relatively small number of shareholders, run by a handful of dusty accountants and administrators operating out of a building just five windows wide in a city thousands of miles away. At the turn of the nineteenth century, the British East India Company controlled huge swaths of the Indian subcontinent. It ruled more land and people than existed in all of Europe, collecting taxes and setting laws. It commanded a well-drilled standing army of 200,000 men, twice as large as Britain’s own army at home, and operated the world’s largest mercantile fleet. Its collective firepower was greater than that of any state in Asia. Its global trading relationships were fundamental in everything from the foundation of Hong Kong to the Boston Tea Party. Its customs, duties, and dividends were critical to the British economy; no less than half of Britain’s foreign trade at the time ran through the company. This was clearly no ordinary corporation. In truth it was a kind of empire.

Empire, Incorporated: The British East India Company