Advances in mathematical understanding can lead to sudden spurts of innovation and technological discontinuities. Mathematical insight can therefore lead to strategic surprise that can provide economic, scientific and technological breakthroughs which can have profound geopolitical significance.
Major global players as well as some of the smaller ones place such emphasis on mathematics research.
There are several possible developments that might lead to the Singularity - a mathematics breakthrough is one of them.
Recently there have been notable breakthroughs in the algorithms that underlie AI that I hope to capture here.
And then there is just the mystery, beauty and elegance of this lens on the universe and perhaps what lies beyond.