Mehran Gul, "The New Geography of Innovation: The Global Contest for Breakthrough Technologies" (Simon and Schuster, 2026)
New Books in Science, Technology, and Society

Mehran Gul, "The New Geography of Innovation: The Global Contest for Breakthrough Technologies" (Simon and Schuster, 2026)

B2Upper-intermediateSeptember 24, 202639 min
  • Interview
  • Technology

Increasingly, it seems like the corporate names that dominate headlines are much more diverse than they used to be. Samsung, TSMC, and SK Hynix. Alibaba and Tencent; BYD and DeepSeek. Sea and Grab. For twenty-five years, it seems like every major technology was American . That assumption is now under strain as innovation spreads from one place to many. Mehran Gul tries to map out this new network in his book The New Geography of Innovation: The Global Contest for Breakthrough Technologies (Simon and Schuster, 2026). From China's startlingly messy AI ecosystem to Singapore's government-led innovation, from South Kor...

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and grab. For 25 years, it seemed like every made technology was American. That assumption

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Mehran Ghul tries to map out this new network in his book, The New Geography of Innovation,

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B2

B2 · Upper-intermediate

Comfortable if you already follow TV news

A1 18%A2 37%B1 23%B2 18%C1 4%
  • 78% of the words are B1 or easier.
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0:00

Welcome to the New Books Network. Hello, I'm Nicholas Gordon, host of the Asian Review of Books podcast and in partnership with the New Books Network. In this podcast, we interview fiction and nonfiction authors working in, around, and

0:14

about the Asia-Pacific region. Increasingly, it seems like the corporate names that dominate headlines are much more diverse than they used to be. Samsung, TSMC, SK-Hynix, Alibaba, and Tencent, BYD, and DeepSeek.

0:27

and grab. For 25 years, it seemed like every made technology was American. That assumption is now under strain, as innovation spreads from one place to many. Mehran Ghul tries to map out this new network in his book, The New Geography of Innovation, the global contest for breakthrough technologies. From China's startlingly messy AI ecosystem

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