IVA Business Executives Council| Summer Session 2026

AI and the future of economic power  

AI is often discussed in terms of capability. 
Much less attention is paid to how control is structured, how it accumulates, and how it is exercised in practice. This is where the underlying dynamics are set. 
This is where the conditions for competitiveness, economic influence, and long-term prosperity take shape. 

Who controls the systems that shape our future? 

The global development of AI is not converging on a single model. 

In China, it is driven through coordination, long-term direction and execution at scale. In the United States, it is organised around capital, platforms and the concentration of control. In countries such as South Korea, a different approach is emerging, where integration and strategic positioning define influence within systems that are not fully controlled. 

These are not variations on a theme. They represent fundamentally different ways of structuring control. 

The Summer Session takes these differences as its starting point for a conversation about Europe’s position in practice. Not as a question of catching up, but of deciding where control matters and acting accordingly. 

Where does Europe already hold control that matters? Where does it need to build it, and what would that require? And where are we prepared to depend on others?

Additional contributors will be announced.