India, Nov. 7 -- What if the countries with the greatest reserves of labour are no longer the obvious destinations for the world's factories?

For generations, developing economies have pursued a familiar route to prosperity: educate workers, attract manufacturers and export their way into higher-value industries. That strategy rests on an assumption that may become less dependable. Factories have traditionally followed workers. Increasingly, some may follow electricity.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and industrial robotics will not eliminate the importance of labour. But as production becomes more automated, reliable power, computing capacity and speed of connection to electricity networks could carry greater weight in investment decisio...