AI Takes Centre Stage at Davos 2026 as Leaders Debate Its Future

Amid varied discussions that took place in the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum 2026, one recurring theme that echoed the Swiss town of Davos was ‘AI technology.’

The voices include Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang who called AI “the largest infrastructure buildout in human history,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei saying we’re “knocking on the door of incredible capabilities,” and Historian and author Yuval Noah Harari warning that the deepest effects of AI will play out over long timescales.

Vaishnaw Led the Buzz

The buzz started when India’s Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw pushed back against the International Monetary Fund’s characterisation of the country as a “second-tier” AI player.

In an interview on the sidelines of the Forum, Vaishnaw argued to position India in the top tier AI players of the world, stating India belongs among the leading nations shaping global AI adoption.

He said India is working on all five layers of AI, including AI architecture, application, model, chip, infra and energy. He rejected the notion that strategic advantage flows only to countries that own the largest frontier models, arguing instead that India is building depth across the entire AI value chain.

Besides Vaishnaw, several heads of state and government, business CEOs, civil society leaders, global media and youth leaders voiced their opinions around the domain and its impact on society.

On AI’s Impact on Jobs

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink opened the WEF, with a strong message to the global elite.

He called out the unchained growth of AI, which could potentially risk the world’s working and professional classes. He also warned that betting on AI could be capitalism’s next big failure since the Cold War, which has failed to deliver for the average human being in society.

“Early gains are flowing to the owners of models, owners of data and owners of infrastructure…..What happens to everyone else if AI does to white-collar workers what globalization did to blue-collar workers? We need to confront that today directly. It is not about the future. The future is now,” Fink said.

Similarly, Jamie Dimon, CEO and chairman, JPMorgan Chase described AI as a transformation “faster, broader and unavoidable.” He said it will meaningfully change banking and reduce jobs, and warned that the rollout “may go too fast for society,” risking civil unrest unless governments and business coordinate retraining and phased adoption.

In contrast to the previous statements, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis noted that AI will create alternative jobs and urged people (especially students) to get “really unbelievably proficient with these tools.”

He said AGI work could create “new, more meaningful jobs,” and warned China’s AI progress is now only “months behind” the West in key areas.

On AGI and Infra Buildout

In the same panel, Hassabis was accompanied by Anthropic’s Amodei and Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-in-Chief, The Economist who was also moderating the discussion, which explored the breakthroughs which matter most on the road to AGI.

Amodei argued that export of advanced AI chips to geopolitical rivals is a grave mistake (at one point comparing risky exports to “selling nuclear weapons”) and urged careful regulation and geopolitical consideration around chips.

Just like Vaishnaw’s statement, Huang framed AI as a multi-layered system (a “five-layer cake”) that requires huge infrastructure investment. He said, “You don’t write AI, you teach AI,” and trillions of dollars of AI infrastructure still need building. He argued AI can help close tech divides if coupled with industrial capability.

The top, where hardware turns into margins, is “ultimately” the one where “where economic benefit will happen,” Huang said, describing a world where AI shows up inside financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, and whatever else still has inefficiencies to squeeze.

On Future of AI

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX in a surprise Davos appearance, painted a robot-driven future (robotaxis, humanoid robots). He argued that robotics + AI are “the path to abundance for all” and suggested cautious rollouts of autonomous systems while forecasting rapid advances in robotics and AI.

US President Donald Trump in his Davos address boasted the US as “leading the world in AI by a lot,” using AI leadership as part of a broader “America First” technology and economic pitch.

Lastly, Harari warned AI is shifting from tool to agent, said its deepest effects will play out over long timescales (centuries) and that a lack of long-term concern is worrying. He argued AI will create major societal/identity challenges that must be addressed now.