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June 25, 2026

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AI, Global South driving next wave of innovation amid geopolitical tensions: WEF president

Unlocking that potential will depend on stronger energy systems, investment and cross-border collaboration, experts told CNA at the World Economic Forum’s Summer Davos meeting.

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DALIAN, China: Artificial intelligence and the Global South are set to drive the next wave of global innovation amid mounting geopolitical tensions and a more fragmented world economy, said World Economic Forum (WEF) President Alois Zwinggi on Thursday (Jun 25).

Rather than slowing technological progress, geopolitical crises are pushing governments and businesses to accelerate the deployment of new technologies, particularly in healthcare and the energy transition, he added.

“I think (crises like the Middle East conflict) are a motivator to make sure that the innovations don’t stay in the lab, but they actually impact our lives positively,” Zwinggi told CNA on the final day of WEF’s Summer Davos meeting in the northeastern Chinese port city of Dalian.

At the three-day Annual Meeting of the New Champions, more than 1,700 leaders from government, business and academia gathered against a backdrop of conflicts, shifting supply chains and growing competition between major economies.

Discussions centred on where future growth will come from and how businesses should adapt to a changing global landscape.

POTENTIAL IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH

For Zwinggi, one of the biggest opportunities lies in emerging economies.

“The Global South has many opportunities that are still untapped,” he said, referring to various countries around the world that are sometimes described as “developing”, “less developed” or “underdeveloped”.

Many of these nations are in the Southern Hemisphere, largely in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

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Unlike developed economies burdened by ageing industries and infrastructure, many developing countries are building new industries from scratch, Zwinggi pointed out.

“One of the advantages the Global South has, versus the industrialised world, is they don’t have to amortise legacy industries or legacy investments they have done in the past, and that enables the Global South potentially to leapfrog ahead,” he added.

He added that developed economies are increasingly seeking closer cooperation with countries in the Global South as companies diversify supply chains and consumer markets.

Despite this optimism, Zwinggi acknowledged significant obstacles remain before innovations can be deployed at scale.

“I think limitations could be, obviously, with regards to the financing of innovation at scale. Every market needs to have the capital available to fund all those start-ups and new innovations,” he said.

In a speech on Wednesday, Chinese Premier Li Qiang had repeatedly stressed that innovation would be the driving force behind China’s long-term economic growth with AI at the forefront.

While China and the United States have relatively mature financing ecosystems, Zwinggi said Europe, Latin America and Africa still have ground to make up.

He added: “The other obstacle of innovating at scale, I think, is also a cultural one. Is a society ready to deal with the innovations? Is society also ready to take risks with new innovations?”

BUSINESSES FORCED TO ADAPT

Rather than viewing geopolitical fragmentation solely as a threat, Zwinggi said companies are increasingly treating it as a catalyst for change.

“What we have seen for some years now is a much faster fragmentation of the world, or we could also say that we’re in the build-up of a new order,” he said.

“In that context, organisations, and particularly companies, will have to rethink how they operate, how they organise their supply chains, but also how they approach their consumer markets.”

Experts who spoke to CNA at the sidelines of the WEF meeting said those adjustments are already underway, particularly in the energy sector.

The recent Middle East conflict has once again exposed Asia’s dependence on imported fuel, noted Joshua Ngu, vice-chairman for Asia Pacific at global research and consultancy group Wood Mackenzie.

“I think what this crisis has shown is that APAC as a region is vulnerable to supply shocks,” he said.

Around 20 per cent of global oil and gas supply comes from the Middle East, but about 50 per cent of Asia’s oil imports come from there, Ngu noted.

He added that the longer-term challenge extends beyond securing fuel supplies to finding a balance between energy security, affordability and sustainability.

“Coming out of this crisis, I think a lot of focus is definitely going to be around energy security. It’s going to be around where you secure your gas and oil from … (and) what routes (are taken for oil and gas) to be delivered to Asia,” he said.

At the same time, AI is driving unprecedented growth in electricity demand, which presents a huge opportunity but a huge challenge as well, Ngu told CNA.

“China does define, in many ways … how a resilient energy system could look like (and how) our power system could look like,” he said.

Still, Ngu cautioned that every country would need to chart its own pathway rather than simply replicate China’s model.

For example, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Power Grid has long been seen as a potential game changer for regional energy cooperation.

Ngu said there is “a lot more momentum” around it now, despite challenges in making it a reality.

HEALTHCARE, BIOTECH AS ANOTHER FRONTIER

During the WEF meeting, healthcare was another sector in the spotlight as AI and biotechnology converge to reshape drug discovery, diagnostics and healthcare delivery.

China’s biotech industry has been expanding rapidly, with companies stepping up overseas licensing deals and looking beyond the domestic market.

Eric Tse, CEO of Chinese pharmaceutical group SBP Group, said Chinese biotech firms have developed increasingly sophisticated research capabilities but are still building the commercial networks needed to compete globally.

“Through the past four or five years, more and more companies, including us, have developed the capability of having a global pipeline, but not global distribution yet,” he said.

“So, in this period of time, I think collaboration is what is most important.”

Professor Ren Minghui of Peking University’s School of Public Health said China’s progress has been significant, but cautioned against overstating how far the industry has come.

“I don’t think so,” said the former assistant secretary-general of the World Health Organization, when asked whether China was experiencing a “DeepSeek moment” in biotechnology.

“We are still small potatoes in the global community of biotech … The increase rate is very fast, but clearly, if we look at China’s share globally, we are still very small.”

Still, Ren believes the foundations for long-term growth are strengthening.

China’s population of 1.4 billion provides companies with a large domestic market to support research and commercialisation, while relatively lower-cost clinical trials and continued government support have made the country more attractive for pharmaceutical development, he pointed out.

China could produce globally influential biotech companies “probably in the coming 10 years”, he added.

Ren also pointed to China’s healthcare system and growing adoption of AI as advantages that could accelerate innovation.

But he warned that geopolitical tensions pose one of the biggest risks to the sector’s future.

“New regulations (are being) issued by the current American administration (to) try to ban or stop collaboration between the Chinese manufacturers and research development institutions with their counterparts, because they are concerned about security and competition from China,” Ren said.

Developing medicines and vaccines depends on international cooperation and multi-country clinical trials, he argued, making scientific collaboration important despite rising geopolitical competition.

“If you don’t have this multi-country clinical trial, the products developed by one country cannot easily be recognised by other countries through their regulatory systems,” he noted.

OPTIMISM OUTWEIGHS UNCERTAINTY

Despite the challenges, Zwinggi said the forum reinforced his confidence that innovation will continue to advance.

“It’s hard not to walk away from these two days with more optimism … We have had more than 100 innovators here, companies that are really at the cutting edge of technology,” he noted.

“If you interact with these companies, and if you listen to the leaders of these companies, you cannot walk away with anything other than an increased sense of optimism.”

Source: CNA/lt(ca)

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