Predict, Manipulate, Control: The Data Wars
Data has replaced oil as the most valuable resource. In a world where prediction is power, the data wars shape the future of nations and corporations. Who controls information, and who is controlled by it? Discover how manipulation, prediction, and data dominance are reshaping the global order.
In 2005, twenty years ago, I mastered the image of the documentary Sed by Mausi Martínez, which, in the words of Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, warned that the next wars would be fought over water.
Ironically, we have plenty of water. Once we solve the energy demands of desalinating oceans and the environmental impact of brine disposal, the problem will be technically resolved. But perhaps the real solution won’t lie there, but in something far more inaccessible and costly—like extracting water from meteorites. A method exclusive enough to keep the resource in the hands of a few.
Two decades later, while water wars remain part of the geopolitical equation, another resource has drawn even more attention. Unlike water, it doesn’t deplete with use, yet in the right—or wrong—hands, it can shape the future of entire nations.
That resource is data. And like everything essential to humanity, it also stirs the passions that drive people to their worst extremes.
From data to power
To measure traffic flow, one could rely on satellites analyzing real-time images or, like navigation apps, use movement data from individual users to predict congestion. If a high percentage of devices report being stationary or moving slowly, the system detects a problem. Simple, right?
But this principle goes far beyond traffic. From social media activity to energy consumption patterns and financial market fluctuations, everything we do generates data. In the past, our ability to capture it was limited. In recent decades, we’ve learned to store it on a massive scale. However, the real revolution today is that, thanks to neural networks and deep learning, we can now identify patterns where before we saw only noise.
The power of finding patterns in complexity
The real breakthrough isn’t just the accumulation of data, but our ability to analyze it at an unprecedented scale and speed. Twenty years ago, a satellite image archive was just that—an archive. Today, a computer vision system can process those images in real time, detecting subtle changes that predict humanitarian crises, covert military operations, or even the outbreak of diseases in crops before they become visible to the human eye.
This capability isn’t just descriptive—it’s predictive. With enough data and properly trained AI models, we can anticipate economic trends before they appear in traditional indicators, detect social movements before they erupt into protests, and even foresee political decisions based on shifts in discourse.
Computational power is no longer just a tool; it has become the lens through which reality is interpreted—and, ultimately, the key to shaping the future.
The new struggle for supremacy: data, power, and geopolitics
In the 20th century, a nation’s wealth and influence were measured in barrels of oil, gold reserves, or military strength. In the 21st century, global hegemony depends on something less tangible but infinitely more powerful: the control of data and the ability to extract useful information from it.
This new geopolitical order is shaped not only by who has access to data, but by who has the infrastructure to process it. The competition between world powers is no longer just about land or natural resources, but about controlling telecommunications networks, cloud infrastructure, and the most advanced AI architectures.
China has understood this by developing its own digital infrastructure and restricting foreign companies’ access to its population’s data. The United States, meanwhile, has concentrated power in tech giants that store and process more information than many governments. Europe, on the other hand, seeks to balance the scales with regulations like GDPR, designed to limit the indiscriminate exploitation of its citizens’ data.
Who controls the truth in the age of data?
Power has always been tied to knowledge, but in the era of artificial intelligence, absolute power will belong to those who control the interpretation of data. This raises a fundamental question: if machines can detect patterns and predict events, who decides which patterns matter and which should be ignored?
This is the defining conflict of our time. It’s no longer just about who possesses information, but about who decides what is real and what is not. In a world where algorithms can amplify narratives, predict behaviors, and shape decisions, the battle for data control is, ultimately, a battle for the control of reality itself.
But there’s an even more critical dimension to this struggle: data sovereignty.
What happens when a country’s most strategic data—its history, resources, social and economic behavior—is no longer under its control? Today, many governments rely on foreign infrastructure to store and process their most sensitive information. From cloud servers to decision-making algorithms, digital sovereignty is becoming as crucial as territorial sovereignty once was.
Nations that fail to secure control over their own data will be forced to live by the rules of those who do.
Will the next wars be fought over data, or will those who control data be the ones dictating them?
