The demand for predicting the future seems to grow rapidly in periods of crisis. Currently, long-term forecasts are emerging from every quarter. I would like to incorporate some of these projections while venturing my own for what the world would look like in 2050 — primarily from the viewpoint of power.
Population and GDP trends will bear the most direct influence on national power. Based on the 2017 Revision of the U.N. World Population Prospects, India, China, Nigeria, the United States, Indonesia, Pakistan and Brazil appear set to become the world's "G7" in terms of population by 2050.
Meanwhile, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit's 2015 long-term macroeconomic forecast, the world's major economic powers of 2050 will be China, the U.S., India, Indonesia, Japan, Germany and Brazil, in that order.