WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM

BLOCKCHAIN

The WEF Platform for Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) works to advance a systemic and inclusive approach to governing DLT, to ensure that everyone can benefit from this technology. WEF works on governance issues related to the equity, interoperability, security, transparency, and trust of DLT.

WEF analyses the relationship between blockchain and cybersecurity and international security, and the future of computing. It publishes papers on issues such as the challenges blockchain faces and its role in security. The latter paper, for instance, notes that blockchain, like any other technology, raises security issues; solutions to address such issues include educating users about the security risks and how to mitigate them, developing a workforce of security-minded blockchain developers, and making public and private leaders understand that blockchain is no silver bullet to security.

In addition, WEF has created a Global Blockchain Council to address governance gaps and to provide policy guidance under its Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

WEF is also active on issues related to digital currencies and their policy implications. In January 2020, it created a Global Consortium for Digital Currency Governance, to work on designing a framework for the governance of digital currencies, including stablecoins. It aims to facilitate access to the financial system through inclusive and innovative policy solutions. Along with the launch of the consortium, WEF published a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Policy-Makes Toolkit, intended to serve as a possible framework to ensure that the deployment of CBDCs takes into account potential costs and benefits. Among others, the toolkit suggests that policymakers should carefully evaluate the macroeconomic and financial risks and opportunities presented by CBDCs, including with regard to their impact on financial stability, monetary policy, and the overall domestic political environment as well as geopolitics.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

The WEF Platform on AI and Machine Learning brings together actors from public and private sectors to co-design and test policy frameworks that accelerate the benefits and mitigate the risks of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Project areas include standards for protecting children, creating an AI regulator for the twenty-first century, and addressing the challenges of facial recognition technology (FRT).

In addition, WEF created a Global AI Council to address governance gaps and to provide policy guidance under its Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

WEF explores issues related to AI safety, security, and standards; AI ethics and values; and machine learning and predictive systems in relation to global risks and international security. WEF extensively publishes articles on the need to build a new social contract to ensure that technological innovation, in particular AI, is deployed safely and aligned with the ethical needs of a globalising world. Examples of such publications are The new geopolitics of artificial intelligence, Responsible Limits on Facial Recognition Technology and Unlocking Public Sector Artificial Intelligence.

WEF is also assisting policymakers in devising appropriate AI-related policies. For instance, it published a Framework for Developing a National Artificial Intelligence Strategy to guide governments in their efforts to elaborate strategies for the development and deployment of AI. Among other elements, the framework outlines the need for countries to develop plans for international co-operation and contribute to global efforts towards AI regulation and governance.

In recent years, AI and its impact on national and international policy spaces have featured high on the agenda of WEF’s annual meetings in Davos, attended by high-level leaders from governments, international organisations, private companies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and other actors.

INTERNET OF THINGS

The WEF Platform on Internet of Things, Robotics and 5G works with key players from the public and private sectors to accelerate the impact of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, build trust in consumer IoT, unlock the shared value of IoT data, enable an inclusive roll-out of 5G and next-generation connectivity, and promote the responsible adoption of smart city technologies. Specifically, WEF analyses questions of  IoT and data ownership, infrastructure security, vulnerability of IoT to cyber-attacks, and the potential for these security breaches to cause serious harm on a large scale.

In co-operation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), WEF published a report on Realizing the Internet of Things – a Framework for Collective Action outlining five pillars for the development of IoT: architecture and standards, security and privacy, shared value creation, organisational development, and ecosystem governance. This report highlights the need to establish governance frameworks for IoT ecosystems. It also recommends the creation of a security observatory to share guidelines, standards, reference architectures, best practices, and timely warnings across industries and sectors.

WEF also created three Global Councils related to IoT: Global Internet of Things Council, Global Drones and Aerial Mobility Council, and Global Autonomous and Urban Mobility Council to address governance gaps and to provide policy guidance.

AUGMENTED/VIRTUAL REALITY

WEF is expanding and streamlining its work on virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) by creating the Global Future Council on Virtual and Augmented Reality, which will explore and raise awareness of the positive and negative aspects of the widespread adoption of VR/AR technologies.

WEF carries out policy research and analysis related to the impact of VR/AR on the society and its security implications in publications such as Virtual Reality Discovery and  Industry review boards are needed to protect VR user privacy.

QUANTUM COMPUTING

WEF facilitates debates on how new and disruptive technologies – such as quantum computing – should be managed and governed. It published a report proposing a new framework for the responsible use of such technologies, with the underlying concepts of ethical thinking and respect for international human rights standards. WEF also publishes regularly on the relationship between quantum computing and cybersecurity.

By creating The Global Future Council on Quantum Computing, WEF intends to explore computing-related trends, including new, foundational technologies and techniques for centralised and distributed processing. The Council is also intended to define and explain to a broad audience the new capabilities of quantum computing, along with its potential to transform industries and society.

ROBOTICS

Robotics is part of the WEF agenda under the  WEF Platform on Internet of Things, Robotics and 5G. WEF analyses the impacts of advances in robotics in particular within the AI and IoT setting. It works on co-designing, piloting, and scaling up the next generation of policies and protocols related to robotics. WEF regularly publishes on issues such as the merging of human and machine approaches to cybersecurity and the role of robotics in warfare, and discusses rules for future AI and robotics.

The forum has also created three global councils related to robotics: Global Internet of Things Council, Global Drones and Aerial Mobility Council, and Global Autonomous and Urban Mobility Council to address governance gaps and to provide policy guidance.

5G

5G is part of the WEF agenda under the WEF Platform on Internet of Things, Robotics and 5G. WEF has identified 5G as an issue of global importance and works on analysing the impacts of 5G on the industries and society.

In its report on The Impact of 5G: Creating New Value Across Industries and Society, WEF notes that 5G will be critical because it will enable unprecedented levels of connectivity, allowing for superfast broadband, ultra-reliable low latency communication, massive machine-type communications, and high reliability/availability and efficient energy usage, all of which transform many sectors, such as manufacturing, transportation, public services and health. It suggests that ‘regulators, industry associations, network operators, service/ technology providers, and public-private partnership organisations must engage in continuous dialogue to address the challenges facing widespread 5G adoption worldwide and to maximise the opportunities it will bring across sectors’.

WEF also explores impacts of 5G adoptions in publications such as 5G is About to Change the World in Ways We Can’t Even Imagine Yet and 5G Will Change the World But Who Gets to Write the Rules?