Davos, Switzerland. It’s the kind of gathering that doesn’t happen often. Nearly 3,000 of the world’s most powerful people squeezed into an Alpine resort
as temperatures dip below freezing. But inside the convention halls of the World Economic Forum this week, things are heating up fast. The mood? Uneasy. The stakes? Higher than they’ve been in generations.
The numbers tell part of the story. A record 400 top political leaders showed up that’s 65 heads of state and government, more than any Davos before. Eight hundred and fifty CEOs. A hundred young tech founders are worth billions on paper. NATO’s chief, the World Bank boss, and the IMF director. They’re all here. But unlike the usual back-slapping networking you’d expect, there’s a palpable tension running through every corridor and every panel discussion.
“This is the most geopolitically charged and complex time in several generations since 1945,” WEF President Børge Brende said as doors opened on Tuesday. It wasn’t hype. It was a statement of fact.
The Elephant in the Room: Trump is Coming
Donald Trump touches down on Wednesday. That single fact has reordered everyone’s thinking here. His administration’s tariff threats, the Greenland talk, the aggressive posturing toward Europe, it’s all people can talk about. Eight European nations huddled together to back Denmark. The message was clear: Don’t mess with us.
Ursula von der Leyen, the EU’s top executive, is already on stage Tuesday morning with a message for Washington. She barely steps off before China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng takes the microphone. The choreography is unmistakable. The two biggest alternatives to American power are making their case simultaneously. It’s minilateralism in real time, smaller coalitions, harder bargains, and less trust.
“A spirit of dialogue,” the WEF calls this year’s theme. But dialogue between whom? And on what terms?
Ukraine War: The First Real Test
Zelensky’s people are in the halls. They’re not here to network. They’re here to brief. Face-to-face meetings with Trump’s team are being arranged. The Ukrainians are keeping Washington updated on Russian strikes on energy infrastructure, on battlefield realities, on what another year of war might look like. It’s geopolitics at its rawest survival negotiations happening in chalets while the band plays.
The question everyone’s asking quietly: What happens if Trump decides the game is over? What if he pushes for a ceasefire that Ukraine sees as capitulation? The calculus here matters for millions of lives back home.
The Geopolitical Reckoning
The WEF released its Global Risks Report. One finding jumped off the page: “Geoeconomic Confrontation” is now the #1 risk facing the world. Just last year, it ranked 9th. The jump wasn’t incremental. It was a statement.
Eighteen percent of leaders here think this is the single most likely thing to trigger a global crisis in 2026. The fears are specific: Russia-Ukraine spirals. China moves on Taiwan. The Middle East explodes again. Trade wars turn into something uglier.
It’s not paranoia. It’s pattern recognition. The old rules of engagement between superpowers have broken down. There’s no shared understanding of what comes next. That’s the real fear in Davos this week.
AI: The Investment Hangover Begins
For the last three years, AI has been the golden child of Davos. Every CEO wanted a GenAI story. Every investor wanted exposure. Billions poured in. But something shifted.
Now the question isn’t “How do we invest in AI?” It’s “What’s it actually worth?” Marc Benioff from Salesforce put it plainly: “I have to have my narrative in my pocket.” Translation: I need a story about AI that works, because everyone here is going to have an AI agent fact-checking me.
Jensen Huang from NVIDIA, Satya Nadella from Microsoft, and Demis Hassabis from DeepMind are all here. But the energy is different. It’s not evangelism anymore. It’s defense. Show your ROI or get out of the way.
Chief economists are debating something extraordinary: Is this an AI bubble? And if it is, does it matter?
Some are arguing that even if it’s inflated, the spillover effects are valuable enough to justify the cost. It’s the kind of backwards thinking that happens when you’ve already spent too much to admit you were wrong.
India’s Moment: Can Hype Become Investment?
For India, Davos is different. It’s usually been a stage to talk about growth, to pitch the story. This year, it’s more urgent. Assam’s Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is here for the first time a state CM has come to Davos. The message from Delhi is clear: We’re not just a growth story anymore. We’re a diversification story.
Manufacturing is moving out of China. Supply chains need rebuilding. India’s got the demographic dividend, the digital infrastructure, the cost structure. And yes, the political will to make things work.
The five areas India is pushing: manufacturing bases, hard infrastructure, digital public platforms, AI innovation, and clean energy. It’s a pitch that lands well in a room full of people worried about concentration risk in global supply chains.
But here’s the tension: Can Davos conversations actually turn into capital flows? Or is this just another year of nodding heads and business cards that go nowhere?
The Optimism That Isn’t Quite There
You’d think with a record crowd of powerful people in one room, there’d be excitement. Instead, chief economists here are showing what they’re calling a “relatively brighter outlook.” Translation: It’s less dire than last year, but that’s not saying much.
Roughly half the room expects weakened economic conditions ahead. Supply chains are stuck in what one analyst called “persistent volatility embedded in the global economy.” This isn’t a temporary disruption you can plan around. This is structural. It’s the new normal.
One bright spot: Climate commitments are actually holding. The net-zero pledges are showing real progress. It’s one of the few areas where there’s genuine momentum.
The Climate Sessions: From Promises to Action
Wednesday and Thursday bring the World Climate Sessions. The theme is blunt: “Aligning Leadership for Implementation Decade.” Translation: We made promises at COP30. Now we have to actually do something.
This is where the gap between talk and action becomes obvious. Anyone can pledge. Delivering is different. The financial institutions, the governments, the corporates, they’re all here trying to figure out how to move money and commitment from spreadsheets to actual projects.
The Criticism Nobody Wants to Hear
There’s criticism in the air, even if it’s not always voiced in the main halls. Davos gets criticised every year for being a talk shop, a place where the world’s richest and most powerful gather to congratulate themselves while inequality spirals and climate change accelerates.
This year, that criticism has more teeth. The inequality gap has widened. The unease is real. The sense that these forums don’t actually produce outcomes is harder to shake.
But here’s what Davos actually is, according to people who understand it: a pressure valve. It’s where face-to-face diplomacy happens. It’s where someone can quietly tell Trump what they think. Where Zelensky can make his case. Where Beijing can signal its boundaries. It’s not a solution factory. It’s a saucer that cools the tea when things are boiling over.
The Week Ahead: What to Watch
Wednesday: Trump’s keynote. Expect him to talk about bringing manufacturing home, about making deals, about American strength. How he frames tariffs will matter enormously. If he sounds combative, markets will react. If he sounds transactional, everyone breathes easier.
Zelensky-Trump bilateral: This is the real news event. What they agree to or disagree on reshapes the Ukraine equation.
Von der Leyen vs. Beijing: The EU and China are circling each other carefully. Watch for any announcements about technology, trade, or strategic partnerships.
AI announcements: Someone will announce a breakthrough. It might be real. It might be marketing. The crowd here knows the difference, but that won’t stop them from getting excited.
India’s investor dinners: Watch the capital flow. If India walks out of here with serious commitments from global funds, it changes the narrative around Delhi’s investment climate.
The Bottom Line
Davos 2026 is happening in a world that’s fundamentally less predictable. The Cold War had rules that everyone understood. The post-Cold War era had American dominance as the organising principle. Now? Nobody’s quite sure what the organising principle is.
These 3,000 people are here trying to figure it out. They’ll network. They’ll make deals. Some will change their minds. Most will leave with a few good stories and a sense that they’re still in charge of something.
But the real work, the hard work of actually managing the tensions between Washington, Beijing, Moscow, and everyone else, is happening in quieter conversations in smaller rooms. That’s where the real Davos happens.
