São Paulo, Brazil – Latin America has accounted for more than two-thirds of the global south’s economic weight over the past 20 years, outperforming regions like Asia and Africa, according to a new report by SuperSymmetry Institute, a consortium of global think tanks.
During the Horasis Global Summit 2025 in São Paulo, Brazil, SuperSymmetry Institute shared a preview of their comparative analysis of top 50 global cities, considering factors like their urban competitiveness, business environment, and investment appeal.
Researchers found that, within their unique Global South City Index- relying on 250 indicators and 25 million datapoints- five systemic megatrends arise: geopolitical tensions; growing economic weight of the global south; technological breakthroughs; demographic growth and rapid urbanization; and climate and resource pressures.
The report, which will be launched in its entirety at the end of 2025, also noted that although Latin American cities show moderate signs of growth compared to overall global benchmarks, cases like São Paulo demonstrate relatively high growth.
Regardless, all Latin American cities show significant potential for attracting foreign direct investment (FDI).
With this, Latin American cities are becoming strategic growth engines in the global south, as the region’s urban centers leverage innovation, investment and talent attraction to compete globally; it is not just catching up to northward trends, but actively shaping the new geography of international competitiveness.
“The north has the systems already built. The south builds new ones,” noted Jerry Hultin, CEO at New York-based Global Futures Group consulting firm.
The five megatrends
Geopolitical tensions
In early 2025, the World Economic Forum (WEF) warned of growing divisions among the international community as part of its Global Risk Report. Ongoing instability anywhere has a profound global impact, including the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine, the Sudanese civil war, and the conflict in Gaza and the West Bank.
Latin America has been no exception. In regards to internal fragmentation, Brazil’s Bolsonaro-Lula divide has deepened ideological rifts, especially as former President Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison last month for plotting a 2023 coup, and incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva faces corruption scandals.
Colombia has also spearheaded unprecedented geopolitical tensions with the U.S., a long-time ally. President Gustavo Petro was recently stripped of his U.S. visa after he accused Washington of violating international law by supporting Israel’s actions in Gaza, and the country also joined the BRICS New Development Bank, strengthening its ties with the Chinese and Russian-led global forum.
Latin America’s economic weight
Meanwhile, research by the Deutsche Bank Research Institute labeled the global south as an economic “fourth block”, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the world’s working age population, a third of global purchasing power parity (PPP)-adjusted GDP, and a quarter of trade and inward FDI.
“As the conditions underlying China’s extraordinary one-way rise get challenged, alternative global growth engines will become more important. But the Global South is made up of 100+ heterogeneous countries, which can make it hard to know which ones hold the greatest promise,” Deutsche Bank noted in its May 2025 report.
SuperSymmetry, however, found that Brazil holds the greatest promise. São Paulo outperforms cities like Cape Town, Moscow and Buenos Aires in gross city product (GCP) per capita growth at PPP, and others like Manila, Addis Ababa, and Mumbai in GCP per capita at PPP.
A technological powerhouse?
The consolidation of Brazil as housing 74% of Latin American deep tech companies is only an indicator to the region’s wider technological contributions and potential. Over $1.29 billion USD have been invested in the Brazilian AI startup scene, Agrifoodtech investments have reached nearly $200 million USD in disclosed deals across the region, and Chile’s Humboldt Cable, currently under construction, will result in trans-Pacific subsea fiber-optic powered connectivity with Asia by 2027.
While at the Horasis Global Summit opening panel, Hultin also explained that having infrastructure, and solid digital operating systems, should be one of today’s city leaders’ main priorities, as this will make the “ability to exchange currencies across borders [to] become easier.”
“A city is a marketplace, a physical territory that is optimized for human collaboration. People can exchange and trade values, and work together. If we go back to this principle, the better organized marketplace we have now is the internet because it is the territory where we organize, we socialize, work together, transact and organize our values,” Hugo Mathecowitsch, founder and CEO at Tools for the Commons, a tech-and-governance startup based in São Paulo, told Latin America Reports.
“The same way that we build on physical territories- physical-first cities- and then we digitalize them, now we need to rethink the way in which we build [that physicality],” Mathecowitsch further stressed, highlighting the importance of tech-forward thinking.
The demographics of urbanization and environmental perils
Latin Americans are also experiencing one of the fastest and most concentrated urbanization processes in history, with over 80% now living in cities- the most urbanized region in the global south, according to the UN. Now, growth is underscored in mid-sized cities, like Colombia’s Barranquilla, Peru’s Arequipa, or Brazil’s Campinas.
While they grow, cities face mounting environmental pressures including heat waves, water scarcity, and natural disasters, although 91% of the region’s population demands stricter climate policies. With this, Latin America has shown considerable resistance and near unparalleled responses to nature-borne crises.
Colombia’s central city of Medellín, for instance, cut its average temperature by 2°C by installing “green corridors”- lines of trees and plants- in an investment totaling $16.3 million USD plus $625,000 USD per year for maintenance. Costa Rica, on the other hand, has produced 98% of its electricity from renewable sources since 2014 and implemented programs to compensate landowners for conserving forests.
“The global landscape is being redrawn; geopolitical rivalries are reshaping alliances, disruptive technologies are transforming economies, climate challenges are testing resilience, and demographic shifts are rewriting growth trajectories,” said Anastasia Kalinina, Founding Steward of the SuperSymmetry Institute.
Anastasia Kalinina
Garnering a global competitive mindset
These megatrends do not exist in silos. The innovative spirit of Latin Americans is carried onto their environmental action and the development of new technology. Their tech then spills onto geopolitical influence, economic power, and how they respond to urbanization and demographic shifts.
However, SuperSymmetry’s index calls for a heightened competitive mindset.
“The competitiveness mindset is not as well established in Latin America,” said Roberto dos Reis Alvarez, Executive Director at the U.S.-based Global Federation of Competitiveness Councils. “Competitive mindset is not inherited; it is built.”
“There is great potential for Latin American cities to move, like São Paulo did, to the next sector of growth […] There is a remarkable chance for the cities in Latin America and the global south in general to move across the spectrum,” Kalinina concluded.
Featured image credit:
Image (left to right): Hugo Mathecowitsch, Angela Gandra, Vahan Agopyan, Anastasia Kalinina, Jerry Hultin, Roberto dos Reis Alvarez, Frank-Jürgen Richter
Credit: Via SuperSymmetry
