WEF ‘Summer Davos’ in China to tackle transhumanism, AI & One Health agendas

The program agenda for the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) 16th Annual Meeting of the New Champions (AMNC), aka “Summer Davos,” in Tianjian, China is now online, and the meeting will tackle issues like transhumanism, AI agents, and the One Health Agenda, among others, from June 24-26.

Over the course of three days this year’s WEF AMNC in communist China will hold multiple sessions surrounding five key themes:

• Outlook on China
• Investing in People and Planet
• New Energy and Materials
• Industries Disrupted
• Deciphering the World Economy

While it’s important to note that speakers and sessions are subject to change, at the time of this publication there is no sign of WEF founder Klaus Schwab, who stepped down from his brief role as the WEF’s Chairman of the Board of Trustees on April 21; however, WEF president Borge Brende is slated to appear on a discussion panel called “Trade: Trends and Endgames,” that will dive into tariffs and geopolitics.

The Sociable has been covering WEF meetings going back to 2016, and for this year’s Summer Davos, there are a few key sessions that have sparked our interest, and there are some memorable names that we’ve covered before, so let’s take a look.

Every year the WEF puts out a report of what it considers to be the “Top 10 Emerging Technologies,” which will be on display at the AMNC, with WEF managing director Jeremy Jurgens leading the way.

You may remember Jurgens from the 2023 WEF Annual Meeting in Davos where he announced that the “most striking finding” from a survey on cybersecurity concluded that a catastrophic cyber event was likely to occur within the next two years.

“The most striking finding that we’ve found is that 93 percent of cyber leaders, and 86 percent of cyber business leaders, believe that the geopolitical instability makes a catastrophic cyber event likely in the next two years,” said Jurgens in 2023.

“This far exceeds anything that we’ve seen in previous surveys,” he added.

Another name familiar to The Sociable readers that will be speaking on a panel called “Safeguarding Growth Engines” is International Monetary Fund (IMF) deputy managing director and staunch Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) advocate Bo Li.

The session starts with the idea that “Emerging markets, notably in Asia, remain key drivers for growing the world’s economy, yet oncoming headwinds, such as tariffs, deregulation and a potential resurgence in inflation, could have a negative impact.”

Speaking at a high-level roundtable on CBDCs in Washington, DC in October, 2022, Li commented on how CBDCs could be programmed to determine what people could own while highlighting the Communist China model of using the data for credit scoring.

“CBDC can allow government agencies and private sector players to program — to create smart contracts — to allow targeted policy functions. For example, welfare payment; for example, consumption coupons; for example, food stamps,” said Li at the time.

“By programming CBDC, those [sic] money can be precisely targeted for what kind of people can own and what kind of use this money can be utilized,” he added.

Li was was also the former deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China.

Moving on to another familiar name at Summer Davos is WEF managing director Gim Huay Neo, who will speak at a press conference called “Energy Transition Index 2025 – From Climate Commitment to Economic Opportunity.”

At last year’s AMNC, Neo talked about putting nature on the balance sheet, including putting prices on water similar to that of carbon taxes.

“We need to keep pushing while continuing to refine and enhance, and the best example I can give is carbon pricing,” said Neo last year.

“Today, carbon pricing, ETS [Emissions Trading Systems], carbon taxes really cover about 25 percent of global emissions.

“We should actually look at scaling this to cover all 100 percent of carbon emissions.

“And beyond carbon let’s think about other aspects of nature that are easier to quantify.

“We will probably not be able to quantify everything on day one, but what about water?

“That’s quite possible for us to start integrating systematically into current trading carbon pricing mechanisms,” she added.

Another familiar speaker at this year’s Summer Davos is Cornell University professor Eswar Prasad, who is also a regular at the WEF.

This year, Prasad will be on two panel discussions:

• Currencies in Flux: Amid financial sector uncertainty, non-US dollar currencies from the renminbi to the euro are representing a growing share of sovereign reserves and being used increasingly in trade invoicing. How could shifting market dynamics change the international currency landscape and what would these changes mean for the broader financial system?
• China’s Economy: Analyzed: Despite persistent challenges, such as low domestic demand and household consumption, China’s economy has been buoyed by strong exports and private sector activity, hitting its 5% growth rate target in 2024 and aiming for similar levels of growth this year. To what extent can a shift to a technology-led model yield new growth as global volatility threatens exports?

At 14th Summer Davos in 2023, Prasad said that governments could program CBDCs with expiry dates and to restrict undesirable purchases, thus taking us into either better or darker worlds, depending on your perspective.

“If you think about the benefits of digital money, there are huge potential gains,” said Prasad, adding, “It’s not just about digital forms of digital currency; you can have programmability — units of central bank currency with expiry dates.

“You could have […] a potentially better — or some people might say a darker world — where the government decides that units of central bank money can be used to purchase some things, but not other things that it deems less desirable like say ammunition, or drugs, or pornography, or something of the sort, and that is very powerful in terms of the use of a CBDC, and I think also extremely dangerous to central banks.”

With a few familiar names returning to the WEF’s Summer Davos in communist China, here are a few key sessions that are on our radar:

• Is Neurotechnology Redefining Wellbeing?
  • Neurological conditions are widespread, with an estimated 3 billion people affected by them. Advances in technologies such as brain-computer interface (BCI) have resulted in life-changing solutions and enhancements that have transformed individuals’ quality of life, care and potential in their communities. What are the possibilities of BCI to improve our everyday lives and how accessible are they?
• Unlocking the Brain Economy:
  • Rapid demographic shifts are reshaping economies, with 1 in 6 people in the world projected to be aged 60 or over by 2030. As ageing populations face rising risks of dementia, stroke and mental health challenges, the brain economy presents a critical opportunity for innovation and growth. How can leaders leverage neurotechnology, digital health and data-driven solutions to enhance cognitive well-being, unlock new economic opportunities, improve quality of life and build more resilient societies?
• The Value of One Health:
  • With vector-borne diseases accounting for more than 17% of all infectious diseases, and predicted to expose 500 million more people by 2050, the interconnectedness of humans, animals, plants and ecosystems is only set to grow. As a one-health approach that considers these connections gains traction, how can new scientific insights support more effective prevention, preparedness and response?
• Nature: A $10 Trillion Opportunity:
  • As of 2025, 1 million species are threatened with extinction with a significant share of global habitats at risk. Yet nature-positive solutions could unlock $10 trillion in annual business opportunities by 2030, transforming nature action into a driver for long-term economic growth. How are financial institutions and other investors considering the potential of this economy and the best strategies to capture its value?
• Where’s the Capital for Climate?
  • From $300 billion in annual climate commitments to support emerging economies to greater regulation of carbon credit trading, COP29 marked a crucial step forward for climate finance. However, the climate finance gap remains vast and trillions more are needed to drive rapid climate action. How can private sector involvement be amplified to unlock capital at scale?
• Social Robots and I:
  • From sharing runways with fashion models to being teacher assistants in classrooms, cultural norms are expanding within industries and societies on how and why to integrate socially intelligent robots. As AI advances the possibilities of social robots, how are experts navigating the challenges, opportunities and ethical implications of the human and robot relationship?
• Building an Agentic Economy:
  • A new wave of start-ups is emerging, built around powerful AI agents capable of autonomous decision-making, dynamic collaboration and end-to-end task execution. These agents aren’t just supporting workflows – they’re becoming the digital workforce that runs entire business functions. How are business models evolving when AI agents take the lead in building, managing and scaling companies?
• Who Trusts the Machines?
  • In 2024, 72% of Chinese consumers expressed trust in AI and 90% considered autonomous driving beneficial, while only 32% of US consumers reported trust in AI and acceptance rates for autonomous driving remained lower in Germany, the US and Japan than in China. What factors are driving these regional differences and how might they shape the speed and approach to deploying autonomous robots?

Together, the above sessions represent several phases of the unelected globalist agendas that delve into:

• Transhumanism: with the merger of humans and machines through brain-computer interfaces.
• One Health: with the merger of climate change and healthcare initiatives under the umbrella of planetary health.
• Taxing Nature: with the idea that in addition to carbon pricing, there should also be taxes on the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the soil we walk upon.
• Rise of the Machines: with the idea that one day AI bots may replace not just our jobs, but also our friends, doctors, teachers, along with how we continue to delegate our decision making to the machines.

We’ll be keeping our eye on other sessions as well because oftentimes, the most telling bits of crucial information impacting all of our lives can be found in obscure and unassuming panel titles.

So, stay tuned the week of June 24-26, as we cover the WEF Annual Meeting of the New Champions, and you can check out all the publicly available sessions for yourself here.

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Image Source: Screenshot from the WEF YouTube video: “Opening Plenary” of the WEF Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2024, featuring WEF founder Klaus Schwab (L) and People’s Republic of China Premier Li Qiang (R)