Roberto Pucciano, CEO of Anchorage Group Ltd. UK

Key takeaways and thoughts on the World Economic Forum in Davos 2026

Embedding Human Values in Intelligent Systems: As artificial intelligence and robotics move from decision support to autonomous action, a central question emerges: whose values are embedded in the systems that increasingly shape economic, social, and security outcomes?

During the era of globalisation, technology governance was largely reactive. Innovation diffused rapidly, and ethical or social concerns were addressed after deployment, often through fragmented regulation. That approach is no longer viable.

In the age of convergence, AI and robotics operate simultaneously as economic infrastructure, social institutions, and instruments of power. Their behaviour cannot be value-neutral, and the assumption that markets alone will select benign outcomes has proved insufficient.

Embedding human values into intelligent systems has therefore become a matter of strategic governance, not moral abstraction.

From Technical Optimisation to Normative Design, AI systems optimise four objectives defined by humans: efficiency, accuracy, speed, and scale. What they do not possess is an intrinsic understanding of social context, ethical constraint, or political legitimacy.

As AI is integrated into labour markets, healthcare, policing, military systems, and public administration, this limitation becomes consequential. Decisions once mediated by human judgment are increasingly delegated to machines whose incentives reflect design choices rather than shared norms.

In this context, “human values” refer not to a universal moral code, but to enforceable principles such as accountability, transparency, proportionality, and human oversight. These principles must be engineered into systems from the outset, rather than appended through regulation after deployment.

The challenge is not whether AI will embody values, but which values, defined by whom, and enforced by what institutions.

Just as supply chains and technology standards are fragmenting along geopolitical lines, so too are approaches to AI governance, becoming Values as a Source of Strategic Divergence.

Different political systems prioritise different values: efficiency versus consent, control versus autonomy, optimisation versus deliberation. These differences are increasingly reflected in regulatory frameworks, design norms, and deployment choices.

For advanced economies, embedding human values into AI is not only a question of social trust, but of strategic differentiation. Systems perceived as opaque, unaccountable, or misaligned with public norms risk political backlash and loss of legitimacy—both domestically and internationally.

In this sense, values are becoming part of technological competition. Trust, governance quality, and ethical credibility shape adoption as much as performance metrics.

Robotics and the Question of Agency; Robotics sharpens these concerns further. When machines move from virtual environments into physical space—factories, hospitals, homes—the consequences of misalignment become immediate and tangible.

Autonomous systems interacting with humans must navigate ambiguity, vulnerability, and moral trade-offs that cannot be fully codified. Ensuring meaningful human control, clear liability, and predictable behaviour is therefore central to maintaining public acceptance.

This places new demands on policymakers and firms alike. Governance must extend beyond data and algorithms to encompass system behaviour, human–machine interaction, and long-term social effects.

Speaking about values, in the age of convergence, values are no longer external constraints on technology. They are infrastructure—as essential as data, energy, or capital.

States that succeed in embedding human values into AI and robotics will not only reduce social risk but also shape global norms, standards, and trust networks. Those that fail may find that technological capacity alone is insufficient to secure legitimacy or influence.

Globalisation assumed that convergence would emerge organically through markets. The new era recognises that convergence must be actively governed—including at the level of values.

What has happened to Globalisation, or is it the End of the Globalisation Era?

For much of the period following the end of the Cold War, globalisation was treated less as a policy choice than as an economic inevitability. Trade liberalisation, cross-border capital flows, and globally integrated supply chains were assumed to be self-reinforcing and, ultimately, irreversible. The role of governments was largely to facilitate integration and mitigate its social consequences.

That assumption no longer holds.

The global economic system is not undergoing a cyclical downturn but a structural transition. What is ending is not cross-border exchange itself, but the particular form of globalisation that prioritised efficiency, scale, and openness over resilience, security, and political sustainability.

The defining characteristic of the globalisation era was the extent to which production and logistics were optimised for cost minimisation. Supply chains became longer, leaner, and more geographically concentrated. National redundancy was treated as inefficiency; strategic autonomy as protectionism.

But we seem to be going from integration to Exposure as recent shocks have exposed the limits of this model. The pandemic disrupted access to critical goods. Energy markets proved vulnerable to geopolitical leverage. Shortages in advanced semiconductors demonstrated the fragility of highly specialised production networks.

At the same time, intensifying strategic competition—most notably between the United States and China—has altered how economic interdependence is perceived. Trade and investment are no longer viewed as neutral channels of mutual benefit, but as potential vectors of dependency and influence.

Institutions such as the World Trade Organization, designed for a world of converging interests, have struggled to adapt to this shift.

The response has been a recalibration of economic policy rather than a retreat from global engagement with the re-emergence of the Strategic State. Governments are intervening more directly in areas deemed critical to national security and long-term competitiveness: energy, advanced manufacturing, digital infrastructure, and artificial intelligence.

Industrial policy—long regarded in advanced economies as inefficient or distortionary—has returned as a central tool of economic governance. Resilience, diversification, and trusted supply relationships now outweigh marginal gains from global cost arbitrage.

This does not amount to deglobalisation. Trade volumes remain high, and cross-border flows persist. But they are increasingly shaped by political alignment, regulatory compatibility, and strategic considerations.

A more fragmented global order is arriving. The emerging system is best described as selective globalisation within a multipolar framework. Economic integration is deepening within regions and among politically aligned partners, while becoming more constrained across geopolitical fault lines.

This fragmentation is unlikely to be temporary. The technologies driving future growth—semiconductors, clean energy systems, data infrastructure—are capital-intensive, strategically sensitive, and closely tied to state capacity. Their development will not be left entirely to global markets.

As a result, the world economy is likely to become less efficient in aggregate, but more resilient at the national and bloc level. The distributional consequences will vary considerably, favouring countries with strong institutions, fiscal capacity, and technological depth.

The most consequential change is conceptual rather than operational. The globalisation era rested on the belief that economic integration would ultimately override political rivalry, and that markets would discipline states more effectively than states would shape markets.

We have now arrived at the end of this assumption. The emerging order accepts that economic openness must coexist with strategic constraint, and that integration is a choice rather than a destiny. Governments are no longer attempting to insulate economic policy from geopolitics; they are explicitly incorporating it.

This marks the end of the globalisation era as it was understood in the late 20th century. What replaces it will be more complex, more fragmented, and more overtly political—but also more aligned with the realities of power and risk in the contemporary world.

Few fields better demonstrate the boundaries of the globalisation model and the Limits of Open Integration than quantum science.

Quantum computing, sensing, and communication are often framed as long-term or speculative breakthroughs. In practice, they shape how states perceive power, secrecy, and reliance on technology. Their importance is more strategic than immediate commercial use: being an early leader confers significant advantages, whereas latecomers face ongoing risks of vulnerability.

Unlike earlier digital technologies, quantum systems do not lend themselves readily to globalised production or open diffusion. They rely on tightly controlled supply chains, rare materials, advanced fabrication, and deep integration with national research ecosystems. More importantly, their applications—cryptography, secure communications, intelligence, and military systems—place them firmly within the domain of national security.

As a result, quantum space is being organised outside the logic of classical globalisation.

We are now travelling from Open Science to Strategic Containment. During the era of globalisation, scientific collaboration was widely regarded as a positive development. Research moved freely across borders with minimal restrictions, and commercialisation aligned with global market principles. However, that model is now facing challenges.

Governments are increasingly treating quantum capabilities as assets that cannot be transferred. This trend is reflected in the rising use of export controls, security reviews for research, and restrictions on academic collaboration. Additionally, investment in quantum infrastructure is now often seen less as industrial support and more as strategic insurance.

The main players—the United States, China, and a small group of advanced economies—are building parallel quantum ecosystems with limited interoperability. Firms such as IBM and Google operate at the frontier, but always within national regulatory and security frameworks.

Quantum communication networks, in particular, point towards a future in which information itself becomes selectively trusted—secured within blocs rather than universally accessible.

Quatum will accelerate the End of the Globalisation Era as Quantum space reinforces three broader trends reshaping the global economy.

Initially, it blurs the line between civilian and strategic technology, prioritising control, reliability, and sovereignty over market efficiency.

Secondly, it prioritises scale, patience, and governmental ability rather than price competition. These strengths allow countries to maintain long-term investments, even if immediate returns are not apparent.

Third, it challenges the idea that technological progress spreads automatically. In quantum systems, the advantage of being the first mover can be long-lasting instead of fleeting.

In this context, quantum space is not an outlier but a harbinger. It foreshadows a world in which the most consequential technologies are developed within bounded systems of trust, regulation, and political alignment.

The emergence of quantum technologies does not mark the end of international collaboration; rather, it reshapes its dynamics by creating a post-Globalisation Technology order. Cooperation will continue among trusted partners, governed by shared standards and security frameworks. What is diminishing is the assumption that openness on its own is the best approach.

The era of globalisation assumed that integration was both economically efficient and politically stabilising. Quantum space demonstrates why that assumption no longer applies. Some forms of integration now generate risk faster than they generate value.

As the world shifts towards a more fragmented and strategic phase of global order, quantum technology highlights that not all frontiers can—or should—be globalised.

Today we face The New Era: An Age of Convergence. What is emerging in place of globalisation is not a single organising principle but a convergence of domains that were once treated as distinct.

During the late 20th century, economic policy, national security, technological development, and geopolitics were managed as largely separate spheres. Markets allocated resources, governments set rules at the margins, and strategic considerations were confined to defence and diplomacy.

That separation has collapsed.

In the new era, economic competitiveness, technological leadership, and national security are increasingly inseparable. Decisions about trade, investment, research funding, and infrastructure now carry strategic consequences. The result is not merely a more interventionist state, but a more integrated one.

No domain illustrates this convergence more clearly than advanced technology, with it, in fact, becoming the Site of Convergence.

Artificial intelligence, quantum systems, space-based infrastructure, and clean energy technologies are simultaneously:

•⁠ ⁠drivers of economic growth

•⁠ ⁠enablers of military and intelligence capabilities

•⁠ ⁠foundations of political influence and strategic autonomy

Quantum technologies are particularly instructive. Quantum computing, sensing, and communication collapse distinctions between civilian innovation and strategic capacity. Their development depends on state-backed research, secure supply chains, and controlled knowledge flows. They cannot be efficiently governed by open markets alone.

As with space infrastructure and advanced AI, quantum systems operate in what might be termed “strategic space”—domains where technological advantage translates directly into geopolitical leverage.

The era of globalisation assumed that economic integration would dilute political rivalry by aligning incentives. The age of convergence reverses this logic: economic and technological systems are now deliberately shaped to serve strategic goals, with them becoming Strategic Convergence.

This explains the return of industrial policy, the tightening of investment screening, and the politicisation of supply chains. These are not temporary distortions but structural responses to convergence.

Institutions such as the World Trade Organisation, designed to manage economic exchange in isolation from power politics, are increasingly misaligned with this reality.

Meanwhile, strategic competition—most visibly between the United States and China—accelerates convergence by forcing governments to align economic and security priorities more tightly.

The age of convergence does not eliminate cooperation, but it reshapes it, producing Blocs, Not Universality

Instead of universal openness, cooperation occurs within bounded systems of trust: among allies, within regions, and across shared technological standards. Trade, data, and research flow more freely inside these systems than between them.

This produces a world that is neither fully global nor fully fragmented. It is selectively integrated—open where interests align, closed where vulnerabilities dominate.

For smaller and middle powers, this raises difficult questions about alignment, autonomy, and technological dependence. For firms, it complicates scale and raises costs. For policymakers, it demands coordination across domains that were once managed separately

The globalisation era rested on separation: between economics and security, markets and politics, efficiency and resilience. In conclusion, that separation is no longer sustainable.

The emerging age of convergence recognises that power now operates across systems rather than within sectors. Technology, capital, and influence converge in ways that markets alone cannot manage.

This new era will be less elegant than globalisation, more contested, and more complex. But it reflects a clearer understanding of how modern power functions—and of the risks of pretending otherwise.

Globalisation promised convergence through markets.

The new era delivers convergence through strategy.