Alex Holmes

Economist at EIU covering Asia. Previously Oxford Economics, Captial Econ, ICAP, Barclays, Government Economics Service. Also cook food. Views not my employers.

[critter @BecomingCritter]

*scrolling twitter for 4th straight hour* man I'm so glad I never got hooked on short-form video

[Melissa Chen @MsMelChen]

Singapore’s Foreign Minister, Dr Balakrishnan casually explaining how he built his own AI agent (a 2nd brain for diplomacy) using Claude & WhatsApp integration etc. on a Raspberry Pi

“You cannot govern a technology you have only been briefed on.” 🇸🇬

[Alex Holmes @AlexCapEcon]

@LizAnnSonders @VisualCap If you do this map with the TiVA data to show where the final demand embodied in countries exports comes from, the map looks very similar to the 2000 one above.

Headline trade data show China's preeminence in global supply. But the US remains preminent as a source of demand.

[Mike Bird @Birdyword]

UK government strategy

1. Announce contentious position
2. Spend political capital defending
3. Take largest possible popularity hit
3. Stop mentioning contentious position
4. Drop policy entirely
5. RETURN TO START

[Eric Levitz @EricLevitz]

In my day, critics denounced U.S. wars of choice as imperialist schemes to seize foreign oil - while the president insisted they were really attempts to spread democracy

Now, critics denounce such wars as attempts to spread democracy - while the president insists they are really imperialist schemes to seize foreign oil

[Jarrod Watts @jarrodwatts]

> be demis hassabis
> spawn in london
> age 4, become child chess prodigy
> win chess tournaments
> reach ~2300 elo
> face danish chess champion
> game lasts hours
> position is a forced draw
> too exhausted to see it
> resign
> danish guy laughs and shows the draw
> feel sick to my stomach
> realise something is wrong
> chess is too narrow a problem
> brilliant minds wasting decades on it
> decide not to become a chess pro
> buy a computer with chess winnings
> teach self to program from books
> start hacking on games with friends
> decide to finish school early
> apply to cambridge age 16
> cambridge says you're too young
> forced to take a gap year
> enter a video game coding competition
> win
> get invited to join bullfrog game studio
> too young to be legally employed
> work there anyway
> build ai system inside theme park game
> game becomes a global hit
> turn 17
> offered £1,000,000 to stay and build games
> turn it down
> go to cambridge anyway
> decide games aren't enough
> study computer science
> interested in agi since 2007
> most people laugh at this idea
> realise brain is only form of agi we have
> want to learn more about human brain
> go back to school
> study neuroscience
> realise academia moves too slow
> decide to build a company instead
> start deepmind
> pitch “solve intelligence”
> investors don’t know what that means
> get to meet peter thiel for one minute
> wonder how to convince him
> spend one minute playing chess with him
> pitch "solve intelligence" again
> he invests
> go into total stealth mode for two years
> no website
> secret office
> candidates think it’s a scam
> start to train ai in simulated environments
> train ai with reinforcement learning
> train ai on pong first
> it sucks
> can't win a single point
> keep trying
> wait it won a a point
> wait it's winning every single point
> it actually works
> expand to train on any two-player game
> chess first, then move on to go
> beats world champion at go
> beats pros at starcraft
> games is not enough
> want to push into science
> realise compute is the bottleneck
> know this will take decades
> google offers ~$400m
> not the highest price
> but they offer unlimited compute
> accept
> refuse to become a product team
> stay in research mode
> determined to use ai for good
> need to figure out what's next
> land on protein folding
> 50-year-old unsolved science problem
> many great minds have tried and failed
> "good luck"
> start up alphafold
> try to solve protein folding
> humans take years to find 1 protein structure
> alphafold can find ~5 per day
> submit results, win competition
> not good enough
> hire more scientists
> rebuild it
> go from solving one per day to millions per day
> create invaluable system
> pharma would pay anything
> have to decide what to do with this
> could sell access for usage
> maybe make it a paid service
> remember childhood chess tournament
> remember why we built this
> decide to give it away all away for free
> publish all known protein structures publicly
> win nobel peace prize
> just the beginning towards agi

[Nick Marro @nickm4rro]

On Dec 2nd @TheEIU will be hosting a FREE webinar on our outlook for Asia in 2026, discussing topics incl 🇨🇳property market, 🇯🇵 fiscal plans and 🇮🇳 water politics.

We'll have two sessions, one at 4.30pm Hong Kong, and another at 9.00am US EST.

Sign up: https://t.co/C00S0OJ0Z3

[GTDC @GTDC_org]

Alex Holmes (@TheEIU): Trade policy isn’t everything. Fundamentals, macro trends and tech cycles matter too. #GTDCSummitAPJ

[Aaron Connelly @ConnellyAL]

Spoke to @NewsHour about the demonstrations in Indonesia.

Lawmakers giving themselves a raise and the killing of Affan Kurniawan were the spark that started the protests. But the dry kindling is a bad economy and President Prabowo’s attempt to eliminate legislative opposition.

[Ben Arnold de Vera @benarnolddevera]

Despite the dismal first-quarter growth mostly weighed down by world trade uncertainties, @TheEIU sees the Philippine economy outperforming the region by growing 6.1% in 2025–also due to its relatively smaller exposure to global trade👇 @AlexCapEcon
https://t.co/HuloZQEofx

[Alex Holmes @AlexCapEcon]

@DavidInglesTV I'd retweet but I'd lose my PR

[Alex Holmes @AlexCapEcon]

@s8mb Great, look forward to it!

[Ben Arnold de Vera @benarnolddevera]

.@TheEIU’s @AlexCapEcon (who had correctly forecast @BangkoSentral’s February pause and April monetary policy easing resumption) expects 100 bps of interest rate cuts for the rest of 2025, in preparation for a possible recession in the United States (US)👇
https://t.co/nXdbh0xKEz

[Alex Holmes @AlexCapEcon]

@s8mb It's a bit like the squirrels in the woodchipper example: https://t.co/vp6Nw8Qwlq

[Oliver Ward @oli_ward_1]

Farmers scramble to find new export markets beyond China
https://t.co/vJ0Bu3S4yf

[The Economist @TheEconomist]

The repercussions of Donald Trump’s sweeping victory in America’s election will affect everything from immigration and defence to economics and trade. Discover more themes to watch for the coming year in The World Ahead 2025 https://t.co/kv3r4zd3ab 🌐

[Have I Got News For You @haveigotnews]

South Korea: identity of martial-law advisor revealed

[Alec Stapp @AlecStapp]

Why are the Anglophone countries so bad at building housing

[Nate Silver @NateSilver538]

It's published.

We ran 80,000 simulations tonight.

Harris won in 40,012.

https://t.co/vsGVG189Sa