Richard Attias with H.E. Fahd Al-Rasheed, Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, Daniel Yergin & More on the World in 2030

So Richard, you're already reimagining human health and longevity, and that's what the leaders we're going to invite on stage are doing in each of their distinct sectors and industries. To celebrate the march to 2030, we have invited some of our most respected speakers to deliver very short talks. These are five-minute talks on their visions for the world in 2030, and Richard and I will be asking only one question of each of our speakers. So please welcome our first speaker to the stage. His name is Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, CEO of 01.AI.

So just a few words about Dr. Kai-Fu, who I know very well, a very dear friend, always good to have you. He's a recognized leader in AI with great experiences at Google China, Microsoft, Apple. Dr. Lee is also a bestselling author, mentor to many in China's AI community, with over 50 million social media followers. So my dear Dr. Kai, I have one question for you. One question, in fact, two, which I will combine into one because it's too complicated to have only one while we have the advantage to be with you. So how do you use AI in your everyday life, and at the same time, what is your advice to the youth about how to benefit from AI technologies? The past three days, everyone was talking about AI, but let's try to be concrete. How should we be involved in AI?

Thank you, Kai-Fu. Thank you. So how would Cecilia feel if she gets flowers from you that were sent by an AI?

Absolutely. We have our next speaker onto the stage. She is one of the most trailblazing women I've truly ever met in my entire life. Her name is Diane Eisner, and she's the CEO of Cruise by Core, transforming construction with AI in the Kingdom and beyond.

Thank you so much. Actually, I'm now the Chief Strategy Officer of Wa'ed Cap Technologies, which I announced I was selling to at the last FII in Rio, the largest Saudi construction software company. But that said, I've been working on urban technologies for a very long time. Mobility through Waymo, starting the Urban Systems Lab at Google and the Cities division of WeWork. Most recently, construction, because that was the biggest issue we were facing with preparing our cities for the future. And none of that has touched the most important issue facing us right now, and that is our urban economies and the future. We are sitting now at this explosion of technology, of opportunity that we've been talking about all week, and it's going to take place in cities. That will be the stage. Cities are opportunity. Cities are finding your tribe. And cities are the density we need to launch entirely new industries from these technologies. So if I look at 2030, urban economies will be fueled by AI and robots and climate tech, and it's very exciting. But the reality we have today is that we have an affordable housing crisis due to affordability. We have population decline in some cities. We have 15% only of the world's 1 billion full-time workers feel engaged with their work or that they have purpose. We have fear among the entire population, the uncertainty of what these technologies are going to bring. And then I think about this other statistic, which is that pick an average recent year: 82% of wealth creation is going to the top 1%. And that's us. All that really means is that the economic engines we've relied on no longer fit the future. They don't fit these technologies. So what are the emerging business models that are going to support and drive these technologies to serve us? Well, I like to think about multiplayer models when I think about business. And you know, there is one multiplayer model that has served us very well to some period in history, and this is franchising. And it sounds ridiculous, but it is about to get insanely cool. This is not fast food and car dealerships. This is about our ability to have in each of our own cities what we want from the best technologies around the world. This is a franchising of advanced technology, a network of access that will bring us lab-grown diamonds, lab-grown sushi. It will bring us biofabrication where we're growing our own hearts and lungs and neurons. It is advanced manufacturing. Basically, anything with a robot in a lab can be part of this franchising of advanced technology. Let's call it FAT because it's going to be relevant to what we're saying. Okay, we're going to call it FAT: Franchising of Advanced Technology. Before I get into that, I do want to say, do you know franchising comes from French? It means to free from servitude. So in 2030, we free ourselves from servitude with these new models that allow for us to think about things like reintermediation. So technology has driven us toward a perfect capitalism where there is very little friction between supply and demand. We like this. However, maybe we inject a little bit of FAT because there are a couple of myths about recent models, like for example gig work, but also disintermediation being only good for the consumer. In fact, it has consolidated more ownership and potentially constrained the original companies from their potential growth. So this has a chance to really fuel our future, and definitely within our cities. You know, we have now the capability of remote operation and quality control and a global workforce that's going to allow us to be training. So there's no company that has these physical locations that can't start this right now. The big technology companies and our local entrepreneurs are going to be able to co-create how we unleash our economic potential in cities. And the cities will decide. They will say, 'This is relevant to me. I want a longevity center. Well, I need access to specifically urgent care. I want lab-grown diamonds. No, I want sushi.' So technology, this existential, really needs us to lead and make sure that the models we're creating are leading the technologies into options that are going to lift us all up, create and distribute opportunity. This is our ability to connect citizens and cities to the growth engines of the future, and it's already within sight. We are going to do this by 2030. This is technology that serves us. This is us creating safety, opportunity, and superintelligence in our cities. This is technology serving us. Thank you.

We have one question for Diane. My question for you is, as the CSO of Wa'ed Cap, how are you positioned to usher that new urban economy?

So I'll just say I'm CSO once again, clarifying. My CEO is sitting right there, by the way. So how are we going to usher it in? Well, basically, Wa'ed Cap is working with many of the Saudi giga-projects. We're working on these cities. We're mandated on every Aramco project. We are helping build the infrastructure in a very safe, efficient way that's going to actually get our buildings done in time so that cities are ready for these new industries. Thank you.

To talk about how food will look like in 2030, you're curious about that. We'd like to welcome to the stage the founder and CEO of UA Incorporated, Dr. Azar Damdam. Round of applause for her, please.

Thank you. Good evening, Your Royal Highnesses, Your Excellencies, esteemed guests. My name is Azar Damdam. I am a scientist and entrepreneur with a PhD in food preservation technologies and the Internet of Things. In the past years, I've dedicated my career to exploring innovative solutions at the intersection of food technology and sustainability. And it's an honor today to share with you how I envision the future of food by the year 2030. Let me begin by a simple but profound truth: food, water, and climate are deeply interconnected. Agriculture alone consumes 70% of our fresh water resources. And in a world struggling with water scarcity, the cost of food extends far beyond our economics; it's a strain on our most vital resource, which is water. So if we are to secure a sustainable future, we must reimagine how we grow, handle, and value food. But today, I stand before you not to recount challenges but to illuminate opportunities. I envision a future where innovation can transform scarcity into abundance. Consider a future where technology brings life to the desert. Imagine AI-powered greenhouses, vertical farms, aquaponics, and hydroponics that exist in arid areas, in places once thought too dry to produce anything. These technologies will not only grow food, but they will save water and help communities be more resilient. And this rapidly growing sector is a powerful testament to how we can turn scarcity into abundance. Now, imagine the transformative impact of extending the shelf life of fresh foods, a mission that my company UA has championed. Five years ago, extending the shelf life of fresh food was a vision. Today, it is a reality. And by the year 2030, it will be the new norm. Technologies like mine and other companies that focus on reducing food waste will help reduce the global food waste, which currently accounts for one-third of the food produced for human consumption. And this will not only save resources, but it will also boost food availability for those in need and help fortify global food security in the future. And in this future, plant-based and cell-cultured protein will not be simply an alternative; I believe it will be an essential source of nutrition. Embracing innovations in this space will significantly lower our environmental footprint: less water, less land required for agriculture, and most importantly, less greenhouse gas emissions. This shift will not only benefit the planet, but it will also diversify the nutrition for the growing population sustainably. Finally, food in 2030 is not only about the environment; it's also about our health. It's about how we choose what we eat. That's why I envision the adoption of a new concept called the Food Compass. The Food Compass is a nutrient profiling system, a very comprehensive nutrient profiling system that will help us wisely choose what we eat. It's currently under development in some research groups, but I believe we will be able to use it by 2030. So by 2030, we will be able to take wiser decisions about what we eat, and the food industry will have to prioritize health and nutrition in their food offerings. By 2030, I believe we will witness a food revolution driven by innovation, sustainability, and health. And it will be a world where water resources are cherished, where food waste is a relic of the past, and our diets reflect a harmonious relationship with Earth. So as we look forward to the year 2030, let us do so with hope, optimism, and vision. A sustainable, healthier future is within reach, and together, we will achieve it. Thank you so much.

Dr. Azar, we're a little over time, so I'm going to ask you to take your seat. If you allow me, I have a live survey to conduct. You know, because when I'm hearing these predictions, who agrees with Elon Musk, who predicted two days ago that in 10 years from now we'll have 10 billion robots in our humanity? Who is aligned with him? Raise your hands if you agree. Raise your hand, please. So who does not agree? Thank you. Very interesting. Large majority doesn't agree. So let's see. Hope we will be all in good health by 2030. But in 10 years from now, with your initiatives, we will surely be. Richard, thank you. And now we welcome Marc Lore. He is Chairman and CEO of the Wonder Group. Welcome Marc Lore to the stage. Can we give him some applause, ladies and gentlemen?

Yes, Marc is not just an expert on the food industry. I have to mention for people after, if you want to talk about basketball, he's also an NBA owner. And we will ask some predictions from you, if you don't mind. Marc, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon. It's a great honor to be here. I thought it's fitting, given how much we talked about AI, to on the fly, in real time, right now ask ChatGPT to write this speech, at least the start of it. So, write a speech convincing people that food is medicine. Okay, there it is, ladies and gentlemen. 'Imagine a medicine that prevents chronic illness, strengthens our bodies, boosts our energy, sharpens our minds, and improves our mood, all without the side effects. This medicine exists. It's the food we eat every day. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, said it best: Let food be the medicine and medicine be the food.' It goes on and on. There's paragraphs of it. It's unbelievable the power of AI that wrote that right in real time. I was going to talk about how food is the ultimate preventative medicine. We've talked throughout the last few days about how AI is going to equalize healthcare, democratize it, but it still comes down to the food that we eat. Okay, and let me tell you how AI is going to impact that. For the last three years, lunch and dinner, every meal that I've been at home, which is most of the time, AI has told me exactly what I was eating. So I would basically just say what time I'm eating, the food would show up, and I would eat it. The first few months was a little rocky after, you know, basically giving it feedback: I don't like this, I like that. But over time, also with additional data around my blood results, stool and saliva tests to know what foods I'm sensitive to, what deficiencies I have, basically AI taking all that into account and deciding what I eat. I set health goals, and it basically just delivers food that I like every single meal. And pretty much now, I'm not even giving it any feedback. I'm basically happy with every meal, perfectly healthy. And I think this is the future. I think the future is one in which we take agency out of having to decide what to eat, which also is very time-consuming, but also I think has the opportunity to transform our health. And it has transformed my own health. I love the food I'm eating. I can't wait to sit down and eat, and I'm surprised with every meal. And that's really the future. And at Wonder, the startup that I created, we're basically building the infrastructure to be able to power that. So we've created basically fixed restaurant locations. They have kitchens in the back. They have the ability to cook 30 different cuisines and 600 different meals very fast, very efficiently, with very lightly skilled and lightly trained labor, very consistently. We set a very tight six-minute delivery radius, so we're able to deliver food to people super fast. So we imagine a future with this level of automation in the kitchen, being able to know exactly what you need and what you want, and be able to deliver it to you, starting in the US and then eventually all over the world. It doesn't need to be us doing all of the sort of infrastructure and powering it. In terms of food, the AI could live and others could use it as well. But we do see that as a big opportunity to elevate the health of everyone in the world. And we think it's coming because I've been doing it.

Marc, in addition to this work, I know you are imagining a new city called Telosa. Can you, in one minute and 30 seconds, tell us what is this city, Telosa?

Telosa, yeah. So I wasn't expecting that question, but I'm working on, you know, testing a new model for society with a city called Telosa, where it's more equitable. Where the land is initially owned by the Telosa Foundation, and then as people move there and the land appreciates, Telosa would then sell the land, create an endowment, and use that money to provide the most advanced social services for free to the citizens. So the big idea is that, you know, people aren't getting the benefit from appreciating land from creating cities and communities. And in Telosa, they would—all the appreciation of the land would come back to the citizens. So we can have, it would be in the US, a city with, you know, normal taxes, but with the best free social services of any city in the country. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Marc. Please, round of applause for Marc. So he's inviting us over for dinner at his house and to Telosa as well. We need to ask you about the NBA championship when we're done. Extreme weather is an issue that we have seen truly plague almost every corner of the world because of climate change. So to talk about what this will look like in 2030, I'd like to welcome to the stage Angela Wilkinson. She is the Secretary General and CEO of the World Energy Council.

Thank you. Before I go to the future, I'd just like to go a little bit into the past. It was a very dark and stormy night in 1988 when I bumped into Professor Herbert Lamb, one of the UK's pioneering climatologists. And I mean literally, my car aquaplaned and rear-ended his car. Let me reassure you, he was jolly nice about it, and I didn't lose my job as a postdoc in climate change impact assessments. Last night, I spent an hour on the phone to my father who lives in southern Spain. He is surrounded by flooding, but he's safe and well. What connects these two events, 40 years apart, is extreme weather events. The increasing frequency and violence of extreme weather events is something that we are all beginning to talk about: heat waves, flash flooding, hurricanes, typhoons, ice storms, forest fires are regular news headlines. All life support systems, all industrial systems, and regions of the world are being affected. How extreme is extreme? This summer, three one-in-one-hundred-year events occurred in France. How will we triple nuclear power if we don't have access to reliable water? Two months back, 20 million people were situated on rooftops in southern Brazil when it flooded. Now droughts are disrupting hydropower plants across Latin America and Africa, driving demand for gas and oil. The shock of Hurricane Milton and 91 flash floods and numerous fires in the USA in one year, and not forgetting the heat waves of 2015 which affected the Gulf region, India, Pakistan, and Southeast Asian countries. The Valencia flood is an example of what's called a cold drop. ChatGPT it. And the fatal combination of heat and humidity—it's called a wet bulb event. It has yet to hit threshold, but when it does, we will be talking 20 million plus deaths. The most vulnerable are the hardest hit. I came in from the Belém Road Ministerial, and the energy minister of Honduras was talking about two hurricanes in two weeks at a $2 million dollar cost. Now that's an unlucky strike. We can't put the genie back in the bottle. Only 6% of people now believe that 1.5 degrees is possible. The IPCC expects two degrees and a quadrupling of heatwave effects by the end of the century. Now, if we want every decimal point and every life to count, we have to think that every additional 0.1 degree centigrade is millions more affected populations. Climate adaptation and repair must now go hand in hand with climate mitigation. The good news is there's no shortage of technology or money. But Mother Nature is shuffling the deck. What might she say to us today after listening to the conversations about infinite horizons? Finance: there is no revenue stream for climate adaptation or resilience. Can you change that? Data and AI: how much more energy will you need? Sustainability: a single-issue agenda is a recipe for disaster. You need a multi-dimensional approach. Humanity has a new North Star by 2030. We have designed our institutions for stability and predictable risk control. We now need to reorganize our societies for transformation and emergence. We've exhausted the unlimited growth model. We must now design our markets for regeneration and resilience. We are using digital data and AI, improving physical risk assessments and enabling radical transparency. Now we need to have the courage to look at ourselves in the mirror. It's wonderful to inspire transformations, and it's vital to progress multi-dimensional transitions. Change will not be fast or slow, but sudden and everywhere. And the greatest regret will be being too late. The best way to reduce the costs of acting early is to use all levers of change: financial, technological, and most of all, the missing social transformation lever in making wiser choices. Transformation is a new leadership mindset, not a one-size-fits-all or straight-line journey. Transformation is leveraging synergies, policies, incentives, and collaboration choices. Transformation is a new space for conversation where we actively listen and learn from diverse geographies and across generations about what is working and what is not. Thank you.

Angela, when I see what happened in Spain, in France, in some parts of the world where really I was not expecting to see so huge a catastrophe these past few days, which part of the world are the most vulnerable now on extreme weather?

That's a hard, tough one. I would say it's not just the weather; it's also what's happening in terms of how we manage resources. So if I was just to pick one thing off the top of my head, I would say the Indo-Gangetic Plain, which is the watershed that India, China, and Russia depend on, is at a hotspot of water stress. How many climate change events, extreme weather events, do you need to tip that into ecological disaster, into social disruption, and mass migration? Thank you.

Thank you. You are wonderful, Angela. Big round of applause. We now welcome to the stage...

Daniel Yergin, Vice Chairman of S&P Global, to talk about what energy will look like in 2030. Let's greet him onto our stage. Daniel is also a very dear friend, the Pulitzer Prize-winning expert of course on energy. Daniel, the floor is yours.

Well, thank you very much. Thank you, Richard and Muna, and thank you for the opportunity to be here. You have to be a little modest about talking about what's going to happen in 2030 because think back to 2020, who would have seen a pandemic, two wars, and this revolution coming with AI? With that said, I would certainly like to say that we're going to continue to see profound changes in energy, but I think in a way we heard a little bit of that from Angela that it's not going to be this linear transition which has been the thought that's been out there. It's going to be a multi-dimensional energy transition: different technologies, different mix, different pace, different priorities, different regions will be approached in different ways. And it really means that this energy transition will also be something else which we can call energy addition. And the reasons for it are a number of reasons. One, the voice of the Global South has really been missing from the discussion about energy transition. It's going to get louder and more profound because of the scale of consumption in those countries and also because their voice is going to be heard more clearly. So that's a reason for it. A second reason is the very scale of it. You're talking about changing a $110 trillion world economy in 5 years or in 25 years. You have to be a little more modest about it and realize that all the other energy transitions took over a century to get to what they are. So we have to lodge this in history. Energy security is back on the agenda. Supply chains are very important and minerals that the energy transition is going to be more intensive in terms of mineral use. So what does this mean for traditional energies? Energy addition: oil and gas are going to be part of the mix. Oil is growing, natural gas continuing to grow, but greater focus on emissions, greater focus on technology adaptation, and bringing the technical skills of this great industry to bear to address the questions now on the agenda. Nuclear, we're going to hear a little bit about it, but nuclear is truly having a revival of interest and much more driven by the private sector which is different than in the past. In terms of new technologies, it was around 2010 that wind and solar became competitive. Now they're conventional energies too, a very big growing part of the mix. One question of course is where is hydrogen going to fit into the system. I think we'll see over the next 5 years what scale it gets to. Hydrogen is already used but it will be used more intensively and we're seeing tremendous focus on innovation. You hear it all through this, through the FII. AI really is in two phases. One phase is of course a lot more electricity use. The number is that by 2030 the United States, 10% of its electricity will go to AI. And we heard from Kai-fu about how revolutionary it will be. The question is what impact will it have on energy consumption, that we will find out. So what does this mean for Saudi Arabia to tie it into FII? Saudi Arabia, of course, because of its endowment, because of Saudi Aramco, is a foundation of the world economy today. But we can see its role growing. And I've really been struck by this eighth edition, kind of what I've learned here about the expanded role, the role of Saudi Arabia in supply chains is so much clearer than it was even a couple of years ago and the key role that it will have. And its endowment, of course, oil and gas has been part of its endowment and its strong importance, but that's going to grow now because of this other endowment that nobody really thought about on a global term before, which is electricity. Because Saudi Arabia is going to have very low-cost electricity and very green electricity which is going to make it very competitive in the world and will be a magnet tied in with investment, with innovation, with human capital to be a much bigger player in the energy system in a global way. Because who would have thought 5 years ago that electricity would be so important? So all of this means I think with these ingredients of what Saudi Arabia has, with the technology, the innovation that we recognize, that Saudi Arabia in fact will have a crucial and growing role both in supplying the world's energy and in leadership in the world community. So thank you very much.

We're going to wrap it up. Thank you, Daniel. We're over time, Daniel, but we're going to wrap it up with that good statement that you mentioned in the end. Thank you for that. So we have talked about the vision for food, for urban economies, energy, weather. What will space look like in 2030? For that, we welcome Kam Ghaffarian to the stage. He is the founder and executive chairman of Intuitive Machines, Axiom Space, Quantum Space, and X-energy. Welcome.

Thank you. It's such a pleasure to be here. You know, since I was a 6-year-old, I was mesmerized by stars. I would be sleeping outside, look at the stars, and I was like, is this possible that there are people living in other stars? And that sort of propelled me into space exploration. And I have created three commercial space companies. Just very quickly tell you, February 2024, Intuitive Machines was the first private company in the history of humankind landing on the surface of the moon successfully. And I'm so proud of that. We're building multiple moon landers. Our next moon lander will be going to the surface of the moon first quarter next year. That's Intuitive Machines. Axiom Space, we're building the first private commercial space station and that will replace the International Space Station and we will be launching our first module by end of 2026. Quantum Space, we're building the next generation of multi-purpose satellites that can help with debris, refueling other satellites, or take other satellites to precision orbits. And I'm so proud to say my company X-energy, which is the world leader in advanced nuclear, just two weeks ago signed the largest SMR nuclear deal with Amazon to power the Amazon AI data centers. Just to give you a sense. But I wanted to just sort of expand this a little bit further. When I was at our moon launch in February, I predicted something not for 2030 but by 2055 that we will be in an era that we will have daily, I'm sorry, hourly launches to a space city outside Earth, 250 miles or 400 kilometers above, where there will be people living, working, manufacturing capabilities, and we'll be actually doing incredible things. I mean, literally a city with artificial gravity and all of that. Hourly launches. I predicted that we will have daily launches to the moon and we will have a habitat on the surface of the moon with people working, living, and all of that. And I predicted that we will have weekly launches to the surface of Mars, again with people living and working there and having a habitat there. This is the one that was more interesting. I also predicted that quarterly basis we will have launches to other stars outside of our solar system. Now, why do I say that? Just want to share something really interesting which not many people pay attention. We believe all of us as a humanity that we're really a big thing on this planet. Let me just give you a sense. If we just leave our solar system, we get past the moon and Mars and we get outside of our solar system, we are in our galaxy called Milky Way. The distance from one point of our galaxy to another is 100,000 light years. So if you go with the speed of light, it will take 100,000 years to go from one point of our galaxy to another. There are 400 billion stars just like our own sun in our galaxy alone with planets around them. Now, if you thought that was phenomenal, let me even expand your mind even further. Let's say that we leave our galaxy. Do you all know how many other galaxies exist in the universe? Two trillion other galaxies we believe that exist in the universe based on James Webb Space Telescope. And some of those galaxies are maybe a million or billion times larger than our own galaxies. You see, we are such a small piece. The reason I share that is because space unifies humanity. It brings us together. The astronauts I have sent to space, including being so proud to send two Saudi astronauts in 2022 to the International Space Station, first female from the Arab world, Rayyanah, that we sent to space, for all of them that have done, when they come back, they're transformed. Because when they go around Earth every 90 minutes, they realize there are no borders and there is this beautiful blue globe that's protected by this thin layer of atmosphere. And so we realize that at the end of the day, we are one race, human race. And until we come together and realize that we're one, we're not moving to the next level. So when we look at it in the context of the universe, that should bring us together and realize that we are a very small piece. Let me just tell you one other thing. They've asked scientists based on the size of the universe how many planets in the universe are capable of holding intelligent life. Can you imagine that we believe there are maybe a trillion planets in the universe that may be holding intelligent life? If that's the case, I don't think we're alone and there are many other planets and our ultimate destiny is to go to stars. So very quickly, 2030: humongous improvement in transportation business with Starship, with new landers by different companies. My company Axiom Space will have a space station in orbit and we will be creating a new economy called LEO economy, low Earth orbit economy, where we will be producing orbital data centers, pharmaceuticals. In fact, today we're capable of printing, bioprinting corneas and retinas in space. By 2030, we will be able in microgravity environment, when I say microgravity, that's where there is no gravity and therefore molecules go where they need to go, bioprint hearts and lungs and maybe drop them to different hospitals. There will be also incredible amount of new technologies in terms of lunar technology. We just won a contract to create satellites around the moon and there will be habitat on the surface of the moon. Human beings will be walking on the surface of the moon. So all of that is going to grow, but all of that is to improve the state of humanity and human knowledge.

Kam, thank you. Thank you, Kam. Thank you so much. So ladies and gentlemen, the good news is that FII 63 will be in one of these galaxies. Andrew, thank you so much. What will the Olympics look like in 2032? We all tuned in to the spectacular show that was put on in Paris and to tell us what that will look like in the future, we have Mr. Andrew Liveris with us today. Round of applause for him, please. The former chairman and CEO of the Dow Chemical Company. So Dow Chemical to the Brisbane Olympics, that's quite a journey. What have they got in common? You have to be fit, you have to be agile, you have to love life, and you have to look at infinite horizons, which is the theme of this conference this year. I've been to eight FIIs and this infinite horizons that you've put in place, your challenge for health, Richard, and I admire what you've done.