The rapid advance in digital technology over the last 3 or 4 decades has changed the nature of the global economy, giving rise to new opportunities but also to new vulnerabilities. The COVID-19 pandemic and disruptions in supply chains have suddenly made us aware of the new vulnerabilities. The lecture will review the recent global experience and highlight some of the new challenges, and try to outline new ways of theoretical thinking to model the new world. This bend in the road of the global economy is bound to bring about new winners and new losers among nations, in the same way that the Industrial Revolution had done. The lecture will also peer into the future and speculate about who the winners and the losers might be.