The Dispatch | Friday the Thirteenth: Seen Everywhere, Up to Something

Hello,

There is a lot happening at Future Literacy Group. And these past weeks in Madrid, there has also been quite a bit of curiosity about what we are up to. Since the back of our necks has been burning from all the glances lately, I thought it best to tell you outright. Which, besides, suits us.

Here are some of the lines we are working on and, above all, a few opportunities worth keeping on your radar. Because these days, if you are not strategic, or an “asset”, do you really exist?

Asia: data centres are much more… than data centres

As you may have seen, we are fully active in Southeast Asia through ASEAN Venture. We work on developing investment and industrial opportunities and connecting capabilities across markets.

The Malaysian market illustrates very well what is at stake. A single development can bring together Chinese financing and construction, American technology, Asian supply chains (including advanced semiconductors) and international operators. The bottleneck is not necessarily securing land or attracting capital (though that too, and how): it is coordinating energy, water, technology, regulation, territory and geopolitical dependencies.

As we are getting along through diplomacy, ingenuity and plenty of be water, my friend in lands that have historically intimidated Spaniards, we are also sharing our analysis of Malaysia’s data centre boom and the opportunities and risks this expansion presents.

A couple of weeks ago we published From Mars to Malaysia: The Business of Building Global Assets on our website.

Don’t worry, we are not orientalists. Good work opens doors, but you also need to know the rules of the board. If you are thinking about selling into this region, give me a whistle.

In fact: since mid-October, FLG has been part of the European Innovation Council’s EIC Ecosystem Partnership Programme. This opens a route for companies benefiting from programmes such as EIC Transition and EIC Accelerator to access our services with the support of EIC ACCESS+, which can cover up to 50% of their cost.

So if you are thinking about making the leap into new markets, whether positioning your technology in Europe or exploring opportunities in Asia, we can look at how to support you and whether you can do so with this European backing. Expanding internationally already has enough adventures of its own to give up help when it exists. This is our answer to the standard whistle. We make good Jiminy Crickets. Access here.

ASEAN Venture continues to expand its regional working capacity. We are also looking to bring a young person onto the team to support ASEAN Venture’s due diligence work. If you know someone interested in investment intelligence and Asian markets, here is the internship offer.

Spain: new rules, political cycles and investment that needs the long term

The regulation of the Strategic Investment Committee (CIEN) opens an interesting avenue to recognise and mobilise investments that strengthen the country’s productive and technological capabilities. Buuuut. The platform for submitting projects is not yet operational and is expected to open in 2027. There is one point we should not lose sight of: industrial projects and infrastructure take years to develop; political cycles, far less. Institutional continuity and the ability to work with different counterparts will be decisive.

Last week, Fundación Cotec’s Defence Pyramid was presented at CDTI headquarters, as part of the project The value of defence investment. A collective effort, led by SAPA and involving 42 organisations, to assess the value these investments generate beyond their protective function: industry, knowledge, infrastructure, economy, security and geopolitics.

We had the opportunity to contribute to this line of work through the development of our own frameworks for assessing the strategic value of assets and investments. Our design was selected by Fundación Cotec, and we have provided methodological support throughout the development of this initiative. It is a line we continue to develop at FLG and adapt to different sectors and investment contexts. Presentation of the Defence Pyramid – Fundación Cotec

And 4, 3, 2, 1… The wheel of fortune of those chosen over the last eight years stops in 15 days. And you don’t need an oracle’s night to foresee there will be moves. As a friend, the director of an independent media outlet (whose data centre would make you pale), reminded me a few days ago: the fridges will be defrosted. Brace yourselves.

At FLG we work from that independence: we do not depend on a single administration, political alignment or economic bloc. Our network makes it possible to activate dialogue and collaboration across markets and actors in different jurisdictions, from Japan and China to Southeast Asia (yes, the land of Sandokan too) and Europe.

As you well know, we also move around Washington. We are not always invited for a whiskey at the Villard, nor do we have the budget to settle into the Executive Branch (although, if you lend us the $500k the membership costs, we will work real miracles with it). But we keep cultivating dialogue on both sides of the Atlantic.

From a good project to a strategic investment

There are three central ideas:

• /Countries’ strategic priorities are demand signals and anticipate new markets. But you need to be there beforehand, helping to shape them. Or simply making ideas appear as if by magic, which is our speciality. Following in someone’s slipstream, on the other hand, has its risks, especially when the cycle changes and it is time to start over.
• /The viability of an investment requires integrating technical, financial, industrial… geopolitical and institutional criteria. National, local. Phew. The recent diplomatic friction between Malaysia and Taiwan illustrates this well: diplomatic tensions can affect the investment climate and create uncertainty in value chains that feed some of the region’s leading semiconductor manufacturing hubs.
• /Companies do not need to lead large projects to be part of them: they can join as technology and industrial partners from the earliest stages. The effort is titanic. But that is what we are here for, to invent everything from scratch.

At FLG, we apply this perspective to the analysis and development of strategic assets across different sectors. We work on what makes an asset strategic, what capabilities it generates and how to translate that value into viable opportunities for investors, institutions and industrial actors. And we sell it.

Do you have a project with strategic potential that is not yet ready to attract financing or partners? At FLG we work to make it possible: we assess and structure the project, identify its strategic value, build its fit with investment priorities and mobilise the industrial, institutional and financial partners needed to bring it to execution. The goal is for a good project to become a bankable asset with a future.

Next stop: Spain

Current stop, as you will have seen. If we have pending conversations, opportunities to explore, or it has simply been a while since we caught up, these weeks are a good time: maria.luque@futureliteracy.eu.

And how good it felt to write this in my own hand. I hadn’t done so since I was subcontracted to write Artigas’s speeches. And the PowerPoints. And the strategies. Well, under the contract beneath the subcontract of the subcontracted cabinet under the chief of staff, of course. But still. My words.

Best regards,

María Luque Fernández

Founder & CEO, Future Literacy Group