Davos 2024 News: Sustainability, AI and Green IT Services Updates and Analysis

Davos 2024 -- the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting -- generated plenty of sustainability, artificial intelligence (AI) and green IT services news has surfaced at the event.

Related: Davos 2025 event dates, location and details.

First, a little background: The World Economic Forum positions itself as the international organization for public-private cooperation. The Forum "engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas," according to the organization's mission statement.

Davos 2024 attracted attract more than 100 governments and over 1,000 partner companies. The event focused on Rebuilding Trust -- which is designed to "reinforce the fundamental principles of transparency, consistency and accountability among leaders." Four key sub-themes include:

1. Achieving Security and Cooperation in a Fractured World
2. Creating Growth and Jobs for the New Era
3. Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a Driving Force for the Economy and Society
4. A Long-Term Strategy for Climate, Nature and Energy

Davos 2024 News Timeline: Where Sustainability, Green IT Services Fit In

Here's a regularly updated timeline recapping Davos 2024 news and developments involving sustainability, green IT services, ClimateTech and related topics for technology partners.

13. Donald Trump and Climate Tech: China-based Longi Green Energy Technology Co., the world’s biggest solar equipment maker, insists a second Donald Trump presidency won’t halt its plans to expand solar sales in the United States, Bloomberg reported.

12. United States - Clean Energy and Manufacturing: Georgia will need to increase its clean energy supply in order for the state to meet demand for electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing, Governor Brian Kemp told world business leaders at Davos 2024, the Associated Press reported.

11. Saudi Arabia: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) innovation platform -- known as UpLink -- signed two agreements to "catalyze innovative global solutions to today’s most pressing environmental and sustainability challenges," the two organizations said.

10. Partnership - High Performance Computing and Carbon Capture: Svante engineers are leveraging Rescale's HPC platform to more rapidly develop carbon capture and removal technology, the two companies said. Rescale announced a somewhat similar partnership with Crusoe earlier this week. See item 4 further below.

9. Leading Manufacturers: Keep an eye on World Economic Forum Lighthouses -- which are "manufacturers showing leadership in applying 4IR technologies at scale to drive step-change financial, operational and sustainability improvements by transforming factories, value chains and business models."

8. IT Services: NTT Data, the global IT solutions provider, has surfaced at Davos 2024 to focus on three core initiatives: (1) Urban Transformation, (2) Advanced Manufacturing and Supply Chains, and (3) Nature and Climate.

7. AI and Power Consumption: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the world needs an energy breakthrough to fully power the future of AI, since AI applications will consume vastly more power than people have expected, Reuters reported.

6. U.S. Energy Policy: The transition toward clean energy and EVs will not be interrupted regardless of who wins the 2024 U.S. presidential election, outgoing U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said, Reuters reported.

5. China Perspectives: Chinese Premier Li Qiang said that tech innovations should not be used as a way to restrict or contain other countries, CNBC reported.

4. Partnership - High-Performance Computing: Rescale and Crusoe have partnered to promote high-performance computing, AI and sustainable computing solutions

3. Climate Change Won't Wait for AI: That's the message from Schneider Electric CEO Peter Herweck, who says AI is not a silver bullet solution for global warming. Although "much of the AI excitement is justified," Herweck is calling on leaders to deploy "existing technologies like renewables, electric vehicles and heat pumps, and automation and building management software that optimizes processes and energy usage in buildings, industrial sites, and infrastructure." Admittedly, Schneider Electric promotes many of those solutions through its worldwide partners.

2. The Biggest Global Risks: The World Economic Forum’s “Global Risks Report 2024,” pinpoints AI-derived misinformation and disinformation as the biggest global risk over the next two years. But longer term, climate-related threats dominate the top 10 risks that global populations will face, according to the report.

1. Send Us Your Davos 2024 News & Observations: Got news to share? Please email me the details - Joe@MentoreVentures.com.

Note: Blog originally posted January 16, 2024. Updated regularly thereafter with Davos 2024 news.