Summer Davos 2026: What to expect as leaders arrive in Dalian

Summer Davos begins tomorrow at 08:30 Dalian time (02:30 CEST), with two sessions that go straight to the tensions shaping this year’s meeting:

The meeting’s opening press conference also takes place at 08:30 local time.

Later in the day, we unveil the Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2026, look at whether energy systems can keep pace with AI’s growth and get a briefing on the global economy alongside a discussion on the Middle East.

We’ll be back here tomorrow with live updates, key moments and analysis from Dalian.

Sixteen new sites have joined the World Economic Forum's Global Lighthouse Network, bringing the community of the world's most advanced manufacturing and supply chain operations to 238 sites worldwide.

The new cohort spans China, India, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States, and it points to three shifts defining industrial competitiveness right now:

If you want to see what this actually looks like on the factory floor, we went inside three existing Lighthouse sites (in Viet Nam, Türkiye and the United States) to find out.

The Forum's Energy Transition Index 2026 is out now with Accenture. It tracks energy systems across 120 countries and flags a fragmented landscape that is changing the pace and direction of the transition.

Clean energy deployment is still strong with renewables and nuclear accounting for 42% of global electricity. But the foundations that sustain it, from infrastructure to finance, have weakened for the first time in over ten years.

Here are two essential pre-reads before the energy sessions begin:

The energy transition's foundations are weakening — the US-Iran crisis shows why that matters now →

A transition under strain: experts reflect on the state of the energy system →

And an essential listen: the Radio Davos podcast on the energy transition:

Also tune into our sessions: 'No Power, No AI' on Tuesday and 'Inside China's Energy System' on Wednesday.

The Forum recently published its regular survey of sentiment on the global economy: the Chief Economists’ Outlook. It includes an improved view on China, tempered by expectations for higher inflation (84% of the experts see increased food prices in store there as a result of the Iran war, which is actually lower than the equivalent figures for the US, Africa, and Europe).

A panel of chief economists are scheduled to take the stage at Summer Davos in Dalian tomorrow (Tuesday, June 23), where they’ll pick apart the current dynamics of the local and global economies – and examine the likely ripple effects of a still-unfolding situation in the Strait of Hormuz.

The exhibition space in Dalian is being set up today, and one of the standouts is an industrial robot arm (the kind built to weld car bodies) put to a very different use.

It's called Robots as Mirrors and there are no barriers between the visitor and the robot. Approach, and it engages. Reach out to touch it, and it retreats.

The installation is the work of Madeline Gannon, a designer and researcher who spends her days, in her words, bringing robots to life. She's written for us ahead of the meeting on what a decade of building these encounters has taught her.

Read Madeline Gannon's essay: 3 shifts shaping how we engage with intelligent systems →

Gannon is also on the programme this week alongside Ya-Qin Zhang of Tsinghua's Institute for AI Industry Research and Andrew Maynard of Arizona State. The session, Robots in Rhythm with Us, runs Tuesday at 16:00 Dalian time (GMT+8), and looks at how robots move from the factory floor into homes, hospitals and streets.

The Forum's weekly podcast Radio Davos is going daily during Summer Davos 2026.

Listen here on the liveblog or wherever you get podcasts (Spotify YouTube or any good podcast platform) including on the Chinese site Xiaoyuzhou. It's also on the Forum Live app.

Released early in the mornings China time, it's a breakfast show that delivers you a preview of the highlights each day.

On this episode, the Forum's Managing Director, Chief Business Officer and Head of Global Programming Mirek Dušek looks ahead to the whole week.

"We're really living 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," Dušek says.

Follow Radio Davos wherever you get podcasts to receive the daily shows direct to your phone every morning.

The World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting of the New Champions is also known as 'Summer Davos' or 'AMNC', and it takes place in China every year, alternating between the cities of Tianjin and Dalian.

We've pulled together six things worth knowing before the Meeting begins in Dalian tomorrow.

Read: What is 'Summer Davos'? 6 things to know about the Annual Meeting of the New Champions in China

The theme for this year's Summer Davos is Innovating at Scale. Here's a quick teaser that sums up what this means:

Sessions start streaming on Tuesday. Follow along here and at #AMNC26.

The World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting of the New Champions (AMNC 2026), also known as 'Summer Davos', opens tomorrow in Dalian, People's Republic of China.

This year's theme is 'Innovating at Scale': how the world closes the gap between technological breakthrough and broad economic benefit.

Over 1,700 leaders from business, government and academia are attending, against a backdrop of shifting trade patterns, rising AI investment and an accelerating energy transition.

Follow this blog for context, previews and the conversations shaping tomorrow's agenda.