As populations fall, nations that can tap human potential will succeed
Countries that use today’s demographic window to accumulate human and technological capital will gain a long-term advantage
For much of the 20th century, many were accustomed to thinking of people as an ever-expanding resource. As the number of people grew, so did labour markets, consumer markets, scientific communities, production systems and armies. In 1950, the world’s population was about 2.5 billion. In 2026, it is reaching 8.3 billion. In just 75 years, the population has increased more than 3.3 times.
In this sense, the current human population may turn out not to be a permanent norm, but a historical anomaly produced by the demographic surge of the past two centuries. Dean Spears and Michael Geruso have developed a similar logic in their book After the Spike: if low fertility becomes entrenched as a new pattern, the world’s population may begin to decline naturally due to people’s everyday decisions.
People remain the primary source of economic, technological and military development for almost any country. The population growth of the past two centuries coincided with an unprecedented acceleration of science, technology and productivity. A simple probabilistic logic emerged: more people mean more potential ideas and a higher chance of producing the human capital capable of creating breakthrough solutions.
But numbers alone are not enough. What matters is the quality of human capital: a country’s ability to educate engineers, scientists, skilled workers and specialists in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics.
This is becoming a new dimension of international competition. As long as countries still have large working-age generations, they can use this demographic window to make a technological leap.
In the mid-20th century, the total fertility rate was about five children per woman. Today, it is around 2.2. But if global fertility settles at 1.4-1.5, the world’s population will begin to decline steadily after reaching its peak. Some calculations show that the global population could fall to 1 billion in roughly 150-200 years. This is not the most extreme scenario, but rather a continuation of trends already taking shape.
Even Europe’s most prosperous countries no longer ensure simple population replacement. The total fertility rate is 1.18 in Italy, 1.1 in Spain and 1.36 in Germany. Even in Scandinavia, long seen as a model of family policy, it is only around 1.3-1.5.
The situation is more acute in Asia; in many economies, it is no longer enough to speak simply of low fertility. It is increasingly a demographic crisis. After falling to 0.75, South Korea’s birth rate rose only to 0.8 by early 2026. In Taiwan, it is around 0.7; in mainland China, about 1; and in Japan, 1.13.
In other words, low fertility is no longer a distinctive feature of a few rich countries. It is becoming a general trend across the urbanised world. What will differ is not the direction, but the speed at which countries enter the age of demographic contraction.
Fertility above replacement level is still supported by sub-Saharan Africa. There, the fertility rate is about four children per woman. But the region also has exceptionally high under-five mortality. In Nigeria and Niger, for example, the under-five mortality rates per 1,000 live births are 115.6 and 110.7, respectively, according to the World Bank’s latest figures. That’s compared with 5.7 in China. Even in these countries, however, fertility is falling noticeably.
Meanwhile, the mere existence of large populations in sub-Saharan Africa or India does not mean that global leadership will automatically shift to those regions. Demographic scale becomes an advantage only when it is combined with education, an industrial base, infrastructure and institutions. The UN projects Africa’s population to reach 4 billion by the end of the 21st century. However, despite important examples of indigenous technological innovation and some progress, the continent still faces development hurdles.
Countries will, therefore, have to look for other ways to preserve economic and technological dynamism – through productivity growth, robotics, AI and industrial automation.
The United States retains leadership in another key dimension of the technological race. In AI investment, it remains far ahead. Private AI investment in the US reached US$285.9 billion in 2025, more than 23 times China’s US$12.4 billion. Stanford notes, however, that private investment alone may underestimate China’s overall scale because of the role of state funds and directed financing.
The US also dominates in infrastructure. According to Stanford, the country has 5,427 data centres, more than 10 times the number in any other country.0
But robots and AI do not emerge in a vacuum. They are created, deployed, maintained and scaled by people.
Therefore, the coming decades will become a race for technological advantage. Countries that can use today’s demographic window to accumulate human capital, develop robotics-based production, deploy AI and strengthen their industrial base will gain a long-term advantage.
In a world where a population can no longer be treated as an automatically expanding source of power, what matters most will not be the number of people alone, but the ability of states to turn human potential into technological advancement, productivity and strategic strength.