AMNC26 Day 3 - The final day at the Summer Davos

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Robin Pomeroy: It's Thursday, the 25th of June, 2026, and from the Annual Meeting of the New Champions, AMNC, in Dalian, China, welcome to Radio Davos Daily.

Give us 10 minutes and we'll give you a rundown of what to expect today on Day 3 of the Summer Davos.

Get it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, any podcast app, including the Xiaoyouzhou app in China, or the Forum Live app.

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

And joining us to help look ahead to the day is Stacey Vanek Smith. Hi Stacey, how are you?

Stacey Vanek Smith: I'm well, Robin, and it's good to see you.

Robin Pomeroy: It's good to see you. You are a journalist and a podcaster. Tell our listeners what journalism and podcasting you do.

Stacey Vanek Smith: I am a writer for Bloomberg Business Week, I cover business and economics, and I am cohost of the podcast Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Business week.

Robin Pomeroy: And you're one of the invited podcasters here at AMNC as well.

Stacey Vanek Smith: I am indeed, I am indeed.

Robin Pomeroy: If you're attending this conference, you will have seen no doubt this big podcasting studio in, it's called The Village, the area up there, kind of in the main deck, one floor up from where we're sitting now, Stacey, and you've been using that booth. Does it feel weird to have people staring through the glass at you like that?

Stacey Vanek Smith: I was worried it would feel weird because I was worried that I would be distracted and I was worried that the guests would be distracted. But it actually somehow is not distracting. It's very kind of cosy and then you know how it is, like we're sitting in the middle of a lot of people right now. You just kind of lock in and you're fine.

Robin Pomeroy: If you're listening to this or hearing any background noise, we're in...

Stacey Vanek Smith: The media village.

Robin Pomeroy: This is the media village and there's people who are finishing their lunch around us and they're ignoring us.

Stacey Vanek Smith: But they're all media people, so this is like...

Robin Pomeroy: They're used to this.

Stacey Vanek Smith: We're all working.

Robin Pomeroy: So is this your first Summer Davos, your first China Forum?

Stacey Vanek Smith: I was in Tianjin last year, but this is...

Robin Pomeroy: Of course you were, we met there, I should remember this.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Yes, yes. Well, you know, you go to a lot of these, Robin, I understand, but this is my first time in Dalian.

Robin Pomeroy: And how do you see this meeting? What is it? What do you get from coming here?

Stacey Vanek Smith: I mean this was also true when we spoke at Davos, but there's so much happening right now. I mean there's the war with Iran and the Strait of Hormuz and all of the tariff stuff. It just feels like a really interesting time for the world and also maybe a very moment to kind of come together in conversation that does not put the geopolitics of the moment front and centre, but actually discusses issues that are maybe aside from that, or maybe bigger than that, or even smaller than that. But I don't know, I feel like it's an important moment, because a lot of conversations have been cut off recently.

Robin Pomeroy: Have you seen discussions? You've probably moderated a session or two.

Stacey Vanek Smith: I moderated a session on inflation, which was really interesting.

There are a lot of sessions on AI and robotics. That's obviously a huge question, a lot of questions about that. It's a very exciting economic development, also a worrisome economic development and one that is very much centred in the US and in China. Those are sort of the two big players. So I think for those reasons, it's very top of mind.

So I've been through some really interesting sessions. There was one about AI and emotions. Sort of the relationships that AI is developing with humans and that, well, that humans are developing with AI. And then I was in a really interesting session about, there's an artist here who makes interactive robots that are like industrial robots she reprograms to be kind of interactive like animals.

Robin Pomeroy: What does she do with those animals when she's reprogrammed?

Stacey Vanek Smith: They are art, like art installations. So, I met you upstairs right near one of them, but they kind of interact and they are sort of looking at you and moving around like an animal. But also, you know, job displacement, economic development, investment, environmental impact, all of that.

Robin Pomeroy: On your inflation session, what did we learn about inflation?

Stacey Vanek Smith: Inflation is interesting. So it's an issue all over the world in China well, I guess the issue isn't as much inflation as it is price stability because in China they're actually much more worried about deflation, about prices dropping because when that happens people stop buying things and you know companies stop making money. They start letting people off and that can get into a bad cycle.

Robin Pomeroy: So let's have a look at sessions then for today. I mean, it is a quiet day. We can go through probably most of them.

At eight o'clock this morning, China time, US and China From Here to Where.

I mean the US China relationship. I think probably if you had to identify three issues here, that would be one of them. Artificial intelligence and also the robotics stuff, that would probably be another. And then the global economy, particularly with the Strait of Hormuz situation.

For me, I would say those three and there's lots of things that come off those like job displacement, as you were saying, which is perhaps related to AI and stuff.

A session on one of those three things, very important, US and China. The two superpowers, I guess, eight o'clock tomorrow.

If that's very early, wherever you're listening to this, it's probably already happened. You can watch that on catch up on the World Economic Forum's website.

Then at 10 o'clock we have, very much China here now, The 15th Five-Year Plan Unpacked. If you want to understand the 15 five-year plan, watch that one. That's at 10 O'clock live or on catch up. Let's pick one more here.

Stacey Vanek Smith: I like Poetic Skylines.

Robin Pomeroy: You like the look of Poetic Skylines, this session?

Stacey Vanek Smith: I do like the looks of it.

Robin Pomeroy: This is with the architect Ma Yansong. He's interesting. I have a colleague who's interviewing him, so hopefully that will be on Radio Davos sometime coming soon. You can check it out.

And then Innovating at Scale is kind of the last session here, 11 o'clock. It's been very much a theme of the World Economic Forum. This week, Stacey, the Forum published the top 10 emerging technologies if you've not read that I urge you to go read it. So it is a really good report And there's also Radio Davos on it. And so you can also listen to that which we published a couple of days ago.

What it does is every year for the last 14 years, there's a panel of experts that identify 10 emerging technology that are not only really interesting in themselves but also they're in a position now where they might, if the stars align, really have a massive impact in the next five years.

But one of the things about technology, and this is why this Innovating At Scale thing may be interesting, is that you can have a great idea, it can work in a laboratory or in a computer, it could work in the real world, but unless you can get it out to market at a price that's right and the framework is there for you, it won't scale up. In a way that it will have that impact on people and on the world. So it's been a kind of a theme of the World Economic Forum for the last few months, culminating in this thing.

So people can watch that. Innovating At Scale at 11 o'clock. And then it closes and we're done.

What do you do after AMNC?

Stacey Vanek Smith: Well, it depends. I may go see a robotic factory. One of the people who I interviewed is the founder of Mech-Mind, which builds a lot of different kinds of robots. And so, I'm here doing some reporting and so I'm hoping to see some robots get made.

Robin Pomeroy: That sounds great.

I will be making a couple of Radio Davos episodes, kind of trying to make sense of what just happened at AMNC26. If you're listening to this and you're not already following Radio Davos, please do. You'll get the first of those programmes next week.

In the meantime, you can watch those sessions back at the World Economic Forum website, but please do follow Radio Davos wherever you get podcasts to get those. Where can people find your programme, Stacey?

Stacey Vanek Smith: Wherever they get their podcasts.

Robin Pomeroy: And remind us the name of your podcast.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Everybody's Business.

Robin Pomeroy: Everybody's Business. It's a great podcast, really enjoy it.

Like I said, Radio Davos will be back next week. We're going weekly again. No more dailies for the time being. Get it on any podcast app or at wef.ch/podcasts.

But for now, from Dalian in China, thanks to Stacey and thanks to you for listening and see you next week.