AMNC26 - What to expect from "Summer Davos"

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Robin Pomeroy, host Radio Davos: It’s Monday 22 June 2026, and from the Annual Meeting of the New Champions, AMNC26, in Dalian, China, welcome to Radio Davos.

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts YouTube or any podcast app, including the Xiaoyuzhou app in China, or on the Forum Live app.

From the World Economic Forum’s Summer Davos in Dalian, China, this is Radio Davos Daily.

Robin Pomeroy: Yes, welcome Radio Davos, this is the day before it all starts, Monday. I'm joined by Mirek Dusek. Mirek, how are you?

Mirek Dusek: I'm good, how are you?

Robin Pomeroy: I'm very well, thanks Mirek. Now you're kind of in charge of this whole show, right? So you're perfectly placed to tell us what could people expect, what is this Annual Neeting of the New Champions?

Mirek Dusek: For us, this is the 17th Annual Neeting of the New Champions. We're back in Dalian. We're excited to be here in this congress centre, which was actually purposely built for this summit back in the day. Is that right? Yeah.

Robin Pomeroy: And it's quite an extraordinary building, isn't it?

Mirek Dusek: It's a very futuristic looking building and I like it very much.

Robin Pomeroy: The thumbnail image for this episode is the picture of the building, so people should check it out. It's all angles and weird shapes and inside as well you can still feel this very unusual architecture.

Mirek Dusek: And I think it fits really well in the overall setting here in Dalyan on the sea and everything.

Robin Pomeroy: Yeah, and because this meeting alternates one year it's here, the next year it is in Tianjin, which is a city fairly close to Beijing, do you know why it's called Annual Meeting of the New Champions? There's a historic reason for that, presumably.

Mirek Dusek: I think it's always been, from the get-go, a meeting where we really wanted to lean to the future, lean on the future a little more than we normally do, so there's always been a greater degree of experimentation, a greater degree of bringing innovators, and so the new champions really signifies the future orientation, looking at where the new growth, the new frontier of science, new frontiers of innovation could be.

It is also taking place in China, in Asia. It's been a region and a country that's always been at the edge of how we look at innovation.

And I think particularly this edition, I think it's really coming through very strongly on really being able to understand where innovation is headed in China.

We have a tradition here. We have a lot of unicorns joining. From China and Asia. A lot of them are, for example, on the embedded physical AI front, a lot of robotics companies. If you look at the cohort this year, we also have a lot companies that are, for example in the bio-manufacturing space. There is a huge momentum right now in China and in Asia around that, but it's a very holistic landscape of innovators coming from around the world to this meeting.

Robin Pomeroy: So lots of, so by unicorns, these are up and coming, very valuable companies. But also you've got governments coming and representatives, tell us kind of who we can expect.

Mirek Dusek: Overall, we have over 1,700 leaders from around the world. We have also then heads of state and government from different countries, just to mention a few, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Guinea, Montenegro. We have the Prime Minister of Korea, and of course we have this great tradition of being hosted by the Dalian government here, and we always have state leader joining also from China with a lot of cabinet ministers as well.

So there is a big cohort always of policy makers here, but I think what is really interesting is that then how do they engage on some of the themes with then the biggest incumbent business organisations in China, Asia, and elsewhere, and the innovators.

And so that's what's really happening here at theAnnual Meeting of the New Champions is that interaction. And this year, the theme is innovating at scale, which really, in our view, is really an important topic to bring to the table, where there is a lot of excitement around, OK, there is all these technological developments. And of course, that's important. And we really live through an age of exponential technological advancement. But you could argue that right now we're getting into a place where it's really all about, how do you make it count for the real economy? How do you broaden the impact of those innovations in industry, economy, society, across markets? And so that's what we are really focusing on here.

And of course, you could say China is doing quite a remarkable job right now in terms of how it deploys some of these technologies to then reshape industry, how the consumer market here is actually adopting some of this technologies, etc.

Robin Pomeroy: It's an interesting time, it's always an interesting time in geopolitics as well. Do you think that is also something, we're in China, we always think about the U.S.-China relationship. People are going to be talking about that as well, I imagine.

Mirek Dusek: I think more contested geopolitical landscape, more complex geoeconomic relations is a feature that I think many would agree is now characterising the international system right now.

We all know that this is also influencing how the world economy is being reshaped, how the growth projections in terms of the growth this year and going forward are being constructed by different organisations.

So it's a very, very important topic to be also on the agenda.

You mentioned the U.S.-China relationship. We have a tradition here, actually, to really look at that almost every year. I think if we look at the programme of this meeting, at least recently, it's such an important relationship. We still live in a very interconnected world economy. We all know that the U.S. President visited here in the spring, so there is a obviously a diplomatic process and all that.

Our role is really to be able to help people around the world who are following this meeting and of course also people that are here, to just maybe better understand what's in it right now, how to navigate it, what it means for their organisation.

Among many occasions to do that here is a session that we do with a couple of very important voices, including Graham Allison, for example, who is a renowned scholar on the US-China relationship.

So this will be definitely top of the agenda, as will be, for example the situation in the Middle East, which we are speaking at a moment when we maybe see an outlook which would look at easing the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, but we also are at a moment where we've seen the effects of that crisis and particularly in terms of energy prices, pressures on inflation, and so we actually have quite a few also protagonists here, leaders and thought leaders, on helping us understand not only what is taking place in the Middle East right now, geopolitically, but frankly, what is the end game, what is structurally changing, including on what the future state of the Persian Gulf will actually be and what are the likely scenarios for how business and trade would be conducted in that region.

Robin Pomeroy: Mirek, thanks very much for giving us an overview of what to expect this week.

If you're new to Radio Davos, you should know that it is published year-round - it is a weekly show that in each episode addresses a big issue - the economy, environment, technology, health, education, jobs - and it looks for ways that humanity can meet some of the the big challenges.

Last week we looked at the global energy system and asked if the Hormuz oil shock would speed up or slow down the transition to clean, secure and equitable energy.

Here is clip from the podcast where one of the guests, Lucy Craig of the advisory and assurance organisation DNV says she believes the Hormuz crisis will spur a faster energy transition, First, my co-host, Nick Wagner, Manager of Energy Initiatives at the World Economic Forum, who says there is also a chance that the crisis will create a greater use of fossil fuels at least in the short to medium term:

Nicholas Wagner, Manager, Energy Initiatives, World Economic Forum: I think there is an important differentiation between the short term and the long term. And some of that was alluded to in the challenge of infrastructure.

I think it was a positive message that came out of China about how China through its really decades now of energy planning is a bit more insulated from the current crisis that we see.

I'll point out that another country that is less impacted is Brazil. Brazil, from the fuel standpoint, has produced a lot of indigenous fuels but also biofuels and has seen a lot less impact on its energy prices.

But there's a sort of dichotomy. I think if we look at the short term, a shock like we've seen is likely to increase the use of oil and gas. And in many markets in Southeast Asia and South Asia, coal. Because those are the fuels they can turn to. And the ability to deploy alternatives is oftentimes limited by the deployment of the infrastructure challenges.

There's also a question longer term. So there's one view, and most certainly there'll be multiple transitions that occur. One is that they'll invest in efficiency, invest in renewables, invest in hydrogen, invest in greater grid and nuclear and electrification.

But there's also another argument to say that there's a lot of investment that's occurring at the moment in fossil fuel extraction outside of the Middle East, looking at Africa, looking at North America, which is the largest producer now, both oil and gas, looking at South America.

So you see a lot of the energy majors producing new fuels and that will take time to develop. But a lot of that, there's a lot of resource out there in regions outside of the Middle East.

Presuming that the Middle east, the Strait of Hormuz goes back to normal operation, then you have a lot of additional supply that will come out of that region.

So we could be in a place in two years, five years where the world actually has a lot more oil and gas supply and prices are very suppressed. Which could have a very detrimental effect on the cost benefit calculations for alternatives.

Robin Pomeroy: That's an unexpected conclusion. And the reason for that would be that people are diversifying where oil and gas comes from.

Nicholas Wagner: Correct, and there's a lot on the north shore of Alaska, all throughout in Argentina, all throughout offshore in Brazil, and huge portions of Africa and Venezuela. There's a a lot of oil and gas around the world, not to mention unconventional in the US and in other places.

So I think it's it's important for policymakers to understand that the short-term reaction is what it is. But longer term without the continued policy support for around transition readiness if the aim is to continue to address emissions, that there needs to continue to be policy because the market will likely, who knows, nobody can predict the future, but the market will likely continue with lower cost oil and gas.

Currently oil and gas, even though certain types of products are very expensive, is at $90 a barrel. And so you could only imagine if things rectify in the Strait of Hormuz and then additional supply comes online that we have many decades to come of oil and gas at low levels.

Robin Pomeroy: Which doesn't bode well for climate change.

If, as Lucy said, a lot of the policy emphasis has switched away from sustainability to security of supply, well, you could fix security of supply by finding new sources of fossil fuels, but you're totally not achieving the sustainability objective, right? I'll just leave that out there. Nick, do you want to ask the next question?

Nicholas Wagner: I think we've discussed some dynamics about the global energy landscape, it's being shaped by a complex mix of uncertainty geopolitical tensions and evolving policy priorities. So how will this grouping of challenges affect the investment decisions of companies and governments? And maybe alluding to what we just discussed, how might that affect the trajectory looking ahead of the energy systems? So Lucy, what do you see from where you're sitting?

Lucy Craig, Director of Growth, Innovation, and Digitalization, DNV: Yes, so very relevant question Nick.

What we see under the current huge uncertainty, you know, both at levels of policy and the geopolitical environment, companies and governments are shifting towards projects which have shorter payback, low regulatory risk, and are aligned with their energy security priorities.

So that means looking at domestic renewables, power grids, LNG in some regions. And so we see that capital is being concentrated in lower risk markets.

And then we also see that the current high interest rates, uncertainty in policy are increasing the cost of capital. And that's particularly true for less mature technologies. So offshore wind or clean hydrogen are much less attractive in the short term.

And I think that goes back to your point, Nick, that there's a short term scenario that is putting a break on the pace of the energy transition.

But then there's also a longer-term scenario and you know, I'd like to just pick up, say a few words on that longer-term scenario because yes, the focus on energy security means that energy exporting countries are perhaps looking at new ways of investing in oil and gas exploration, but energy importing countries are doing the reverse.

They're shifting their focus away from fossil fuels towards the alternatives, renewables and in some cases nuclear and so our own modelling indicates that actually the long-term outcome is that this increased focus on security will actually become a driver of renewables and electrification.

So yes, short term I think we see a slowdown, but longer term we see that in some regions energy security focus is achieving a result on a faster energy transition that previously we have not seen.

Robin Pomeroy: That was Lucy Craig of DNV and before her Nick Wagner of the World Economic Forum speaking on last week’s Radio Davos, an episode called A “fundamental shift” in energy thinking: the Energy Transition Index 2026.

In that episode we also hear from Chinese Professor Boqiang Lin from the School of Management at China’s Xiamen University saying how China’s rapid move to electrify vehicles is one of the reason the the oil shock will have less of an impacton China's economy.

You can get that episode on any podcast app, including in China on the Xiaoyuzhou app and you can find all our podcasts at wef.ch/podcasts. You can hear Radio Davos Daily also on the Forum Live app.

Follow the action from AMNC26, the Summer Davos, live or on catchup on our website where you will also find our liveblog.

Until tomorrow, from Dalian, China, thank you for listening to Radio Davos Daily, and goodbye.