Three Key Moments from Davos for the Cyber Leadership Community

For 55 years the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Annual Meeting has drawn the world’s political, business and civil society elite to Europe’s highest city. Nestled in the Swiss Alps, once a year a small alpine population is swelled by thousands to convene and move forward the agenda on the world’s most pressing issues. ‘Davos’ remains an important milestone in the global calendar with more than 50 heads of state and government attending, with many giving special addresses alongside the thousands of CEOs, government and institutional leaders who make up the Forum’s membership.

In January 2025, Davos welcomed global leaders under the title Collaboration for the Intelligent Age with discussions centred on geo-economic uncertainty, AI, reimagining growth and safeguarding the planet, among other topics. As one of the world’s oldest think-tanks, RUSI and its Director-General are often present at the meeting, working alongside the other delegates, organisations and leaders on the state of global cooperation. This year I was there myself, for the first time as a former WEF employee, with a focus on understanding what the discussions might mean for the cyber community. Three key moments stood out from the gathering of the group on cyber leadership.

Geopolitics and the Return of Trump

Donald Trump’s virtual arrival at the gathering – fresh from his election victory and days after his inauguration – was the most eagerly anticipated speech of the week. Anticipation quickly turned to silence in the Congress Centre as his ‘America First’ rhetoric, lambasting of Europe, and threat of a new era of trade wars landed in one of the great gatherings of global capitalism and multi-stakeholder cooperation. His speech, though, was not happening in an isolated vacuum. The recent US election – bearing significant implications for cyber leaders – was part of a much wider and important trend discussed during the conference week.

2024’s ‘Year of Elections’ saw not only Trump, but an entire wave of nationalist populist leaders resurgent and a retreat of progressive internationalist governments in many world capitals. For cyber leaders, this geopolitical trend can inevitably create a backdrop for more state-on-state tension and mistrust between major powers. Notably, ‘Geopolitics’ was identified in the Forum’s own annual Global Cyber Outlook as the number one issue facing the cyber community, as it bears the threat of increasingly frequent state-sponsored attacks, enhances exposure to data sovereignty conflict, and may well stall collective cooperation efforts.

Cyber is arguably also now, and for the first time, no longer a bipartisan issue in the US. It is almost certain that the new administration will roll back on a number of cyber fronts.

Firstly, there is likely to be a reduction in international cooperation, cyber capacity building efforts and driving the bifurcation of cyberspace and the technology supply chain.

Secondly, there is likely to be a retreat on a raft of regulatory and governance measures – such as relieving pressure on the technology giants, on software liability and minimum industry standards, and on mandates related to cyber insurance – that will cascade across the ecosystem.

Finally, the adoption of a ‘peace through strength’ foreign policy, while aiming for greater geopolitical stability, could equally exacerbate existing conflicts and contribute to greater instability in the cyber domain.

AI and the Release of DeepSeek

Davos’s next momentous event actually happened over 7,000 km away from the Congress Centre, with the release of the Chinese app DeepSeek. Business’s number one agenda and dialogue item at Davos was the application and use of AI. Following the hundreds of billions of dollars of investment that followed ChatGPT in 2022, the release of the cheaper Chinese alternative application was another stark reminder that generative AI is no longer a side innovation project for companies, but a rapidly maturing, aggressively competitive near future of the global economy.

Cyber leaders are having to respond at a much faster pace than envisaged given over 75% of major enterprises now have an active AI strategy in place and must engage with the complex issues inherent in securing AI applications and their transformative business processes. The release during Davos of the University of Oxford and WEF AI and Cyber paper not only highlighted how this requires new tools, security principles and capabilities; it also outlined how we need to move beyond traditional information security practices to assure the properties of fairness, robustness and explainability that underpin the trust that a C-Suite wants from its AI investments.

At an ecosystem level the challenges will be equally difficult – not least a new information sharing paradigm based on unsupervised mathematical models rather than structured IOCs (Indicators of Compromise), and the introduction of new systemic and concentration risks that will need to be identified and managed.

Cleggmania and Technology Leadership 

In observation of the events at Davos, it is worth highlighting that only a lone British technology voice, Nick Clegg – the UK’s former deputy prime minister who currently serves as Meta’s president for global affairs – spoke on stage. Clegg’s prominent defence of his employer’s new content policy couldn’t paper over the relative absence of UK and European technology leadership at the meeting. Up and down the Congress Centre, and in the town’s side events, the agendas were being set and met by US, Indian, Chinese and Middle Eastern tech giants. Not only did the Guardian joke about this, but European Bank President Christine Lagarde focused her speech on the issue.

While some might argue that this Davos characterisation is unfair – especially with regard to the UK’s prominence – last year’s sale of Darktrace, which joined Sophos as part of US private equity firm Thomas Bravo’s mega cyber-portfolio, means that in this rapidly consolidating industry the top 10 companies by market capitalisation are now either wholly US- or Israeli-owned and managed. 15 years on from the UK’s first National Cyber Strategy – while there have been successes – the UK’s commercial experience has been somewhat one of providing intellectual property and capability that ultimately serves overseas acquisition while falling short of delivering its own global market leaders.

The emerging story in AI, quantum and space technology could follow a similar path. For strategically relevant sectors in what is still a free market economy, the new security era raises a question: does this matter, or does it now need to change? The UK’s Cyber Strategy states the desire to be a leading ‘Cyber Power’, a concept centred on the need for sovereign capabilities supporting national security requirements, while still providing soft power and skilled jobs for long-term strategic, competitive advantage.

Three Questions from Davos 2025

What was clear from being among the 3,000 leaders from over 130 countries attending Davos was that amid geo-economic uncertainty, trade tensions, cultural polarisation, and technology transitions, Cyber continues to become more central and strategically significant to the global agenda. For the Cyber community itself the 2025 meeting offered a snapshot and a chance to connect global insights to real action and policies. Below are three questions the UK leadership now needs to answer to turn the three key moments discussed above into action:

• What does ‘America First’ and the wider populist agenda mean for the cyber domain, especially on bifurcation and the critical international cooperation issues?
• Can UK PLC’s competitive advantages better translate into even more sustained and global commercial success within the strategically relevant technology domains?
• How can both the technical and policy cyber community convene to quickly enable the secure use of AI given its rapid and aggressive adoption by global business?

© RUSI, 2025

The views expressed in this Commentary are the author’s, and do not represent those of RUSI or any other institution.

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