The global digital economy is entering a new phase—one defined not by incremental progress, but by structural shifts unfolding across emerging markets at an unprecedented scale. As we move toward 2026, the world’s fastest-growing internet economies are being reshaped by surging smartphone adoption, falling data costs, expanding logistics networks, and accelerating advances in artificial intelligence. These forces are converging to unlock entirely new categories of online consumption, financial access, and enterprise productivity for billions of consumers.
From China’s rapid ascent in AI hardware and model development, to India’s coming wave of milestone IPOs, to Latin America’s fintech and e-commerce breakthroughs, to Southeast Asia’s transition toward disciplined monetization, each region is entering a powerful new chapter of digital growth. For investors, these markets increasingly represent not only the majority of global internet users—but also some of the most compelling innovation pipelines and valuation opportunities in the world today.
The EMQQ Global indexes are specifically built to capture this evolution: EMQQ for broad emerging markets internet and e-commerce leaders, INQQ for the once-in-a-generation rise of digital India, and FMQQ for fast-growing EM ex-China innovators. Together, they provide targeted, diversified pathways for accessing the sectors and companies driving the next chapter of global growth. In a world where digital transformation is reshaping the economic map, emerging markets stand firmly at the center of the opportunity.
Here are the top trends that we believe will drive growth across emerging markets in 2026:
In 2026, China’s AI sector is projected to continue building on the strong momentum established in 2025. The country’s leading internet giants are poised to deliver highly competitive breakthroughs at a fraction of the cost of U.S. peers. China’s leading hyperscalers, such as Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent, have spent just ~US$125 billion across 2023-25, versus ~US$694 billion by U.S. counterparts, yet Chinese models now achieve ~90 % of U.S. performance benchmarks.
Baidu is rolling out its own custom AI chips and supercomputing systems to cut reliance on imported hardware and lower model training/inference costs. It is deploying these capabilities across its entire business, including its burgeoning robotaxi unit. Alibaba, meanwhile, is aggressively open-sourcing models and embedding them across e-commerce, logistics, and cloud infrastructure for broad monetization. Tencent is deploying AI in gaming, social, cloud, and advertising, fueling growth while keeping capex measured.
As we move into 2026, these companies are not only closing in on U.S. levels of model capability, but doing so with smarter cost-structures, deep domestic scale, and faster deployment into commercial operations—setting the stage for a powerful leap in China’s AI-hardware-software ecosystem. The age of AI growth and monetization is only just beginning for the country’s leading internet players.
India is entering a golden age of internet IPOs as several digital-native companies are now reaching significant scale and tapping public markets. A combination of mass smartphone adoption, cheap data, and the rapid growth of internet users in non-metro areas has created a massive opportunity for domestic platforms, while investors are increasingly keen on growth stories with home-market dominance. Companies like Groww, PhonePe, Meesho, Zepto, Lenskart, and Urban Company exemplify this shift from early-stage venture bets to listed growth platforms.
Groww, the quote “Robinhood of India, is an online investment platform allowing users to buy stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, and IPOs. PhonePe is India’s leading digital payments and fintech app, enabling UPI transactions, merchant payments, and financial services. Meesho is a social-commerce platform helping resellers and small businesses sell online, especially in tier-2 and tier-3 cities. Zepto is an Indian quick-commerce company that delivers groceries and daily essentials within minutes through hyperlocal dark stores. Lenskart is a tech-enabled eyewear retailer offering glasses, sunglasses, and contact lenses online. Urban Company is a digital marketplace connecting service professionals with consumers for home services such as beauty, cleaning, and repairs.
India’s surge of internet IPOs in 2025 signals a rapidly maturing tech ecosystem heading into 2026. As a whole, the internet sector remains one of the least penetrated and earliest digitalization stories still in the world today and is poised for multi-decade growth.
The outlook for Latin America’s e-commerce and fintech sectors in 2026 remains exceptionally strong, powered by rapid digitization, rising smartphone adoption, and a still-underpenetrated online retail and financial landscape. MercadoLibre is at the center of this momentum: with e-commerce penetration in much of LatAm still in the low-double digits, the company continues to benefit from a massive offline-to-online shift, faster logistics, and deep regional brand trust. This growth is perhaps best exemplified by the company’s 27 straight quarters of 30%+ revenue growth. Despite its dominance, the company continues to take market share from its rivals while also reinvesting in new business initiatives and product launches.
At the same time, Nubank is scaling rapidly, adding millions of customers across Latin America in 2025 while maintaining one of the lowest cost-to-serve models globally. Its expansion in Mexico and Colombia, coupled with new products across credit, savings, and insurance, is cementing its position as Latin America’s leading digital bank. Together, MercadoLibre and Nubank are driving a powerful structural wave that positions the region for outsized digital-economy growth in 2026 and beyond.
Southeast Asia is entering a powerful new phase of digital-economy growth, and leading platforms like Sea Limited and Grab are well-positioned to benefit. After years of prioritizing scale, both companies are now shifting decisively toward stronger monetization and profitability. Shopee, the leading e-commerce site across Southeast Asia, is tightening costs, boosting take-rates, and improving ad monetization, while Grab is optimizing incentives, expanding high-margin services, and accelerating payments and fintech revenue while maintaining steady growth across its core ride-hailing business. This transition marks a new era in their life cycle: one where operational discipline, ecosystem efficiency, and sustainable earnings take center stage. With rising digital adoption, increasing online spending, and a more rational competitive landscape across Southeast Asia, Sea and Grab are emerging as leaner, more focused, and more profitable leaders in the region’s fast-growing internet economy.
Valuations across emerging markets continue to look highly attractive relative to the U.S. and other developed economies going into 2026. While American equities trade at elevated multiples driven by mega-cap tech, many EM sectors—especially internet, e-commerce, and fintech—offer comparable growth prospects at meaningfully lower valuations. As digital adoption accelerates across India, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and China, earnings growth is inflecting upwards, and business models are strengthening while multiples remain restrained. The combination of robust fundamentals and discounted valuations positions emerging markets as one of the most competitively valued opportunities in global equities moving forward.
As we look toward 2026 and beyond, the investment case for emerging markets has never been clearer. The structural drivers of digital adoption—rising connectivity, expanding online consumer bases, scalable fintech rails, and accelerating AI-enabled productivity—are compounding across every major region. For investors, this represents not just a cyclical opportunity but a multi-decade transformation in how billions of people work, shop, communicate, and access financial services.
Those looking to tap into the future of emerging markets, the EMQQ Global indexes—EMQQ, INQQ, and FMQQ—offer diversified, targeted access to the full universe of emerging markets tech, capturing the companies at the center of this multi-decade digital expansion.