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Davos 2025 – AI, more AI, geopolitics and funding



I just returned from Davos as part of the delegation of The Digital Economist and moderated a panel titled “Harnessing Emerging Technologies – AI, Blockchain, and Beyond” in their program organized by Naroop Sahdev. On my panel were Joseph Raczynski, CEO & Futurist, JT Consulting and Media, Dr. Dimitrios Salampasis, Associate Professor, Emerging Tech & FinTech, Swinburne University and Bhuva Shakti, Board Advisor  & Chief Sustainability Innovation Officer, Wallet Max.



The Digital Economist Panel
The Digital Economist Panel


While Davos was packed on the first two days of WEF, many prominent tech leaders from the USA missed the event, choosing to remain for the inauguration and to lobby the new government. Two big announcements were echoing through the Swiss valley and across the 55th WEF – the first was the US’s Stargate project – a $500bn venture between OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank, and the other was from China – the new DeepSeek AI model than had Silicon Valley pundits raving. One focussed on competitiveness and big money, and the other on open source, cost efficiency. That sums up the geopolitical dichotomy.  Though the theme this year was “Collaboration for the Intelligent Age,” – it seemed very little global collaboration was present, and agentic AI was the hot product everyone was trying to push.


The Davos promenade was lined with companies predominantly from the USA – though India was there too (TCS, Infosys, WIPRO, HCL, and Mahindra & Mahindra) and some Asian countries like Indonesia and Mongolia. India had the most government representation – five states and the national pavilion. The UAE and KSA (and its project Neom) represented the Middle East. No European companies or countries except Ukraine were on the promenade (what is happening here?). No big AI Asian countries (China, Japan, and South Korea were absent), very few African countries (South Africa was present), and no Latin American countries except Brazil. While some governments self-sponsored their delegations, others (including the USA) were sponsored by the private sector. Of course, hats off to Imagination in Action at Davos 2025, which was organized by the amazing John Werner and showcased MIT! I got to talk with Sir Tim Berners-Lee!


Of all the government leader talks I attended, I found the President of Argentina, Javier Milei, interview at the Bloomberg House, most interesting. He was the only government leader who attended President Trump's inauguration and flew to Davos, and gave a speech at WEF (which was very controversial). Javier Milei has a sense of humor and bravado that can make him endearing, but make no mistake – he has very strong views like his neighbor in North America. He was the first government I had listened to where the leader called out his Ministers by name and gave them credit for the transformation happening in Argentina. He is not afraid of shaking the tree (interview here).

 

I met several Government leaders – the UAE minister of state for Economy, the South African Minister for Trade and Investment, the Ambassador of Kenya to Belgium and the EU, the Indian Chief Minister for Gujarat, and the former PM of Finland, among others. And if it counts, Swiss security pushed me out of the way for Tony Blair, who was behind me.


Some of the government officials I met
Some of the government officials I met

The other big topics besides AI

 

1. Trade: There was much dialogue on the power of emerging trade unions and alliances and the role of tariffs on the global economy. There was talk of the power of  BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, which in 2024 invited five additional countries  - Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates), and the G20 (which admitted the African Union). It was felt that 2025 might also determine the fate of Mercosur, which President Milei (Argentina) was willing to leave if necessary for a USA Free Trade Agreement. See his WEF talk, which echoes President Trump’s views and shows how far he is willing to go for the FTA with the USA. However, the test will be China, as the country has lent Argentina close to $18Bn – let us see how he balances these opposing interests with the USA (in addition, IMF has lent $44Bn to Argentina). My tweet on him seemed to have a lot of fans.



President of Argentina, Javier Milei
President of Argentina, Javier Milei

The UAE has signed 24 Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements (CEPAs) covering 2.5 billion people. Singapore and Malaysia have struck a deal to create a special economic trade zone. The EU has created a deal with the Mercosur. ASEAN is working on a Digital Economy Framework Agreement. Despite all the positive news, there was a worry that $6.75 trillion could be lost via geopolitical bloc-based trade.


2. Funding: There is a massive gap in funding for SDGs – whether it is humanitarian aid, health, or climate. Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock, felt that to fund AI data centers and energy requirements, we would turn to capital markets. Of course, in the MENA region, there were discussions of funds for Israel and funds for humanitarian and reconstruction needs in Gaza. It is estimated that it would take 15 years to dispose of the 50 million tons of rubble created to date.

 

In terms of health, an interesting partnership was that of WHO and TikTok for mental health,. Mental health is costing us nearly $ 1 trillion – an important topic. WHO and TikTok are strange partners, but with the USA withdrawing from WHO – the £2 million donation was welcomed. What was disturbing was to listen to TikTokerDr Kirren Schnack, a clinical psychologist, state that there was no support for the correlation between mental health issues and social media usage.

 

Climate change was a topic at WEF, and it was not surprising after the LA fire and the USA pulled out of the Paris Agreement. One session I attended was with Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce. While the company had committed to 1 trillion trees (conserving, planting, or restoring) to offset their carbon footprint, they announced support for the Kivu-Kinshasa Green Corridor, the world’s largest tropical forest reserve located in the Democratic Republic of Congo, bringing their number up to 200 billion trees (~200 gigatons of carbon to offset their 2 trillion AI transactions). Strange question – were not the trees doing their work already – is conservation enough for the rapid and increasing demand for AI? Of course – at least Salesforce is trying (though I wonder if the people cut their time in WEF short due to their new product Agent Force?)

 

3. Inclusivity: Strange, but with so much private sector representation – and a smattering of government and academic players was his inclusive enough? There were mixed feelings in Davos, and this banner was prominently displayed. Some events celebrated women, like the APCO 10th Women’s Leaders Reception, which was a celebration of women, the Seneca Women’s breakfast, and the World Woman Davos Agenda.

 

One of the panels I stumbled upon at the WEF Open Forum, “Levelling the Playing Field,” pleasantly surprised me. Nurul Izzah Anwar, former Malaysian parliamentarian and daughter of the PM, highlighted that Malaysia introduced social security for housewives in December 2022. Asha Makana – a WEF global shaper, reiterated that having female role models at senior levels is critical.

 


 Nurul Izzah Anwar, former Parliamentarian (Malaysia)
Nurul Izzah Anwar, former Parliamentarian (Malaysia)

Prof. Kate Fitz-Gibbon highlighted that no gender equality was possible unless each gender felt safe.  Claudia Romo Edelman highlighted the backlash from white males who felt threatened by the DE&I initiative. Sanna Marin, former prime minister of Finland (in another panel) and current strategic counselor at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, spoke eloquently of the need to get women safer spaces on social media where they could share their opinions without getting attacked.

 

It was depressing to hear that according to the 2024 Gender Gap Report, we are 134 years away from gender equality! Sana Marin highlighted that Finland not only allowed women to vote and hold political offices but provided childcare and, hence, had been able to push its equality numbers up. She stressed that women were better at adapting to new information in a crisis than men!

 

Carmen Correa, CEO of Pro Mujer, found that in South America, 73% of women entrepreneurs do not have access to capital, though they are 50% of the population. Technology can be used for the wrong reasons. A recent OXFAM report, according to Amitabh Behar, their Executive Director, found that it was being misused for female infanticide in crop-affluent parts of India. On the other hand – did you know that 143 million surgeries are not happening in the world (72 counties), mainly for women, even though women make 75% of purchase decisions. Something is wrong here in the State of the World!

 

 

4. Innovation and Hope:  There is a maddening belief that AI will cure health, education, and all inefficiencies without a deep understanding of the trade-offs needed. WEF’s GovTech Network thinks it is a $9.8 trillionopportunity for governments. For example, in the UAE – at the federal level, AI needs to be part of the solution. A report was released in India on how it impacted 1.25 million people. Salesforce was running a pilot in India (in Andra Pradesh), with 1.5 million small farmers using an AI agent to help them, and the plan was to scale it to reach 600 million farmers globally.

 

There were debates on AGI, and Yann La Cunn, Turing Prize winner from Meta, thought it was some time away, whereas Daria Amodei, Anthropic AI CEO, thought it would be achieved over the next 3-5 years (10% error rate). He also said with brutal candidness that AI will remove jobs, and it would be obvious we had only 3-5 years for this to happen. Derek Haoyang Li says that in the future, with AI, our human brain will shrink - like our muscles did after the Industrial Revolution (so this raises questions about future skills – see WEF report). John Sviokla highlighted the digital layer has added behavioral capital (exploited by Meta), network capital (exploited by LinkedIn), and cognitive capital (exploited by companies like Microsoft, Elsevier, etc) – the latter, according to him, was a mistake. One suggestion by Larry Fink was tokenization.

 

I noticed a shift in narratives. For example, at the 2024 UNGA, Cina Lawson, Togo’s Minister of Digital Economy and Transformation, mentioned that though Togo had 5G (thanks to a World Bank loan), much of the population could not access it due to the devices being 2 or 3 G. This time the focus was how they used the Novissi digital platform (built in 10 days) during COVID to pay 25% of the population financial aid via mobiles. This belief in what they hope will work (cure cancer, solve the climate problem, increase inclusivity) did not acknowledge what was not working (privacy, climate exploitation, job loss, or societal changes).

 

Another shift was the focus on competitiveness – whether it was trade, national security, AI, or talent. According to Prof. Arturo Bris, becoming a competitive nation can take two generations. He highlighted that Europe was productive but not competitive since it was inefficient (which he blamed on bureaucracy).

 

I tend to slightly disagree with being competitive for the sake of productivity. Other measures like work-life balance, social security, family and society networks, and cohesion are important. For me, the alarming figure he gave was that – in 17+ years, productivity will triple compared to the previous 19 centuries! While digitalization is often pushed as the catalyst – the South African perspective was different – the Minister of Trade, Industry, and Competition, Mr. Parks Tau, highlighted the importance of an ecosystem perspective. This reinforces the African Union’s stance in its Continental AI strategy that it should reflect the needs of Africa (though I did not hear much at Davos).

 

 

5. Future Governments: Argentina’s President Milei’s ambition is to be the freest country in the world – planning to remove or change more than 300 regulations. On the other hand, President Trump was on a country acquisition spree – Canada and Greenland all seemed to be in sight. UAE and WEF signed an agreement to create the Global Regulatory Innovation Platform (GRIP) - to build legislative capacity, share knowledge, and promote dialogue and tin addition jointly with Dubai Future Forum, they will develop a global index measuring future readiness of public and private sector organizations

 

Of course, according to WEF long-timers, the same people come every year, and the panelists do not seem to change much. Sir Tim Berner-Lee, who attended the MIT Imagination in Action organized by John Werner, said there was not much talk about AI governance and policy (though WEF has an AI Governance Alliance). Ethics and governance were conspicuously absent, but this was expected as this is very much a private-sector event with a strong focus on sales and posturing. Peace also did not seem to be on the agenda – though Ukraine and President Zelinsky were there. The Global Cooperation Barometer puts peace and security cooperation at the lowest point since its tracking in 2013. This I know – if there is no peace, there is no trade, and I reiterate – we should have a global weapons tax on arms trade for humanitarian and reconstruction efforts. It should not be under the UN but a new multilateral organization. 

 

 


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