Global Cooperation

In numbers: Davos 2025 on debt, GDP, planet degradation, AI shelf-life and women in government

Davos 2025 took place in the midst of dramatic political shifts and geopolitical fragmentation.

Davos 2025 took place in the midst of dramatic political shifts and geopolitical fragmentation. Image: World Economic Forum/Pascal Bitz

John Letzing
Digital Editor, Economics, World Economic Forum
This article is part of: World Economic Forum Annual Meeting
  • Davos 2025 took place in the midst of dramatic political shifts and geopolitical fragmentation.
  • For each of the meeting’s five themes we’ve selected a single number that emerged in discussions and interviews, and tells a bigger story.
  • These numbers reflect difficult realities that will likely have to be dealt with in the year ahead.

It’s a daunting task to boil down something like the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos to just five numbers.

That’s particularly true now. The world’s biggest economy appears to be tacking sharply in a new direction, and other governments, businesses, and seemingly just about everyone else in the world is scrambling to determine the best way to adapt.

And there was a lot going on within the meeting itself. The few thousand participants from hundreds of different countries, attending hundreds of sessions both official and decidedly casual, might each have a different standout number, anecdote, or insight that they take away.

Yet, within each of the meeting’s five pillars – Reimagining Growth, Rebuilding Trust, Safeguarding the Planet, Industries in the Intelligent Age, and Investing in People – distinct themes did emerge, and certain figures stood out.

Here are our picks.

'$100 trillion in public debt'

The best intentions, a big obstacle.

Governments around the world have big plans – some want to build up an arsenal of artificial-intelligence capability, some want to reignite moribund economies, some aim to build up domestic production instead of relying heavily on imports. Others want to accomplish all three.

Bigger picture, just about every government is seeking, one way or the other, to foster the kind of economic growth that goes beyond statistics like GDP to deliver genuinely better standards of living for more people. For the sake of stability, and sustainability.

But runaway public debt could undermine all of that.

Soaring public debt levels around the world were a frequent topic of conversation at Davos, and one figure tended to anchor those discussions – the $100 trillion in public debt the world has now collectively accumulated.

Ali Ahmed Al Kuwari, Minister of Finance of the State of Qatar; David Schwimmer, Chief Executive Officer, London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), United Kingdom; Gita Gopinath, First Deputy Managing Director, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Washington DC; Kimberly Clausing, Eric M. Zolt Chair in Tax Law and Policy, UCLA School of Law, USA; Mthuli Ncube, Minister of Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion of Zimbabwe; Stephanie Flanders, Head, Economics and Government, Bloomberg, United Kingdom; speaking in Navigating the Fiscal Squeeze session at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2025 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, 22/1/2025, 16:15 – 17:00 at Congress Centre - Spotlight. Stakeholder Dialogue. Copyright: World Economic Forum / Benedikt von Loebell
Participants in a session on Navigating the Fiscal Squeeze. Image: World Economic Forum

'5% of GDP'

One of the primary reasons for convening so many leaders in one place is to get a sense check of where everyone stands on the biggest issues – and to seek out some reassurance that they can rely on one another to do the right thing.

One of the biggest issues on participants’ minds is the Russian invasion of Ukraine, now entering its third destructive year.

For Europe in particular, the carnage and destruction on its eastern flank has forced a realization that the region must spend more on its defense – at a time when it must also spend heavily on reigniting its collective economic growth and financial might.

In his special address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a plea for that increased defence spending.

“All European countries must be willing to spend as much on security as is truly needed, not just as much as they have gotten used to during years of neglect,” he said.

“If it takes 5% of GDP to cover defence, then so be it. 5% it is."

Borge Brende, President and Chief Executive Officer, World Economic Forum; Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine; speaking in Special Address by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine session at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2025 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, 21/1/2025, 14:30 – 15:00 at Congress Centre - Congress Hall. Plenary. Copyright: World Economic Forum / Benedikt von Loebell
President Zelenskyy delivers his special address.

'40% of the planet's land'

There was a prevalent sense at this year’s meeting that political shifts are bound to uncork profits for businesses around the world. It would be a shame (just to understate things) to see a regulatory rollback that enables more damage to the planet – and undoes progress made to date on preserving the natural environment.

After all, the rampant destruction of the environment for the sake of farming, mining, and other forms of resource extraction has spurred talk lately of planetary boundaries, beyond which the damage we do cannot be undone.

In an interview on the sidelines of Davos, Ibrahim Thiaw, the Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, put a troubling number on the destruction wrought to date.

Some 40% of the planet’s land has been degraded already, Thiaw said, directly affecting about 3.2 billion people.

Ibrahim Thiaw, the Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
Ibrahim Thiaw, the Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. Image: Mattias Nutt

'5 year AI shelf life'

This was a big one. The meeting’s overall theme was “Collaboration in the Intelligent Age,” because the ways in which we’re able to tap into collective intelligence have evolved so quickly in the recent past – and promise to evolve even more dramatically in the very near future.

That’s because companies and governments are now pouring money into the chips, data centers, talent, and energy resources necessary to take artificial intelligence to the next level.

Meta’s chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, said during a session at Davos that a “new paradigm of AI architectures” will emerge within the next five years, which takes things far beyond the capabilities of existing systems.

"The shelf life of the current paradigm,” that is, the large language models people currently use to do things like quickly generate images and text, is short, Le Cun said. “Within five years, nobody in their right mind would use it anymore, at least not as the central component of any AI system.”

Meta's Yann LeCun.
Meta's Yann LeCun discussing the shelf life of current AI paradigms. Image: World Economic Forum / Boris Bal

'33% in government'

Despite a turning tide on DEI, gender parity has not fallen out of focus for participants, if the content of several sessions and interviews at Davos were any guide.

According to the most recent Global Gender Gap Report published by the Forum, efforts to close the “political empowerment” gap, or the difference between the opportunities for women and men to attain decision-making roles, registered the lowest amount of progress.

However, Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s minister of foreign affairs, said during a session at Davos that “We have gone from 16% of women in government,” or well below the sub-Saharan African average of around 27%, “to 33% in the government that was put in place in 2024.”

Catherine De Bolle, Executive Director, Europol (European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation), The Hague; François Valérian, Chair, Transparency International, Germany; Mina Al-Oraibi, Editor-in-Chief, The National, United Arab Emirates; speaking in Towards Parity in Power session at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2025 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, 22/1/2025, 09:00 – 09:45 at Congress Centre - Spotlight. Stakeholder Dialogue. Copyright: World Economic Forum / Gabriel Lado
Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s minister of foreign affairs. Image: World Economic Forum/Gabrie
Loading...
Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

Sign up for free

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Stay up to date:

Global Risks

Share:
The Big Picture
Explore and monitor how Global Risks is affecting economies, industries and global issues
World Economic Forum logo

Forum Stories newsletter

Bringing you weekly curated insights and analysis on the global issues that matter.

Subscribe today

A hybrid model for global trade can help navigate a fragmented world. Here's how

Gilles Moëc

February 10, 2025

Olena Zelenska: We must all act to protect children's safety in the modern world

About us

Engage with us

  • Sign in
  • Partner with us
  • Become a member
  • Sign up for our press releases
  • Subscribe to our newsletters
  • Contact us

Quick links

Language editions

Privacy Policy & Terms of Service

Sitemap

© 2025 World Economic Forum