Last week, world business and political leaders met in Davos, Switzerland for the 55th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF). The weeklong conference was structured around five key themes: Rebuilding Trust, Reimagining Growth, Investing in People, Safeguarding the Planet, and Industries in the Intelligent Age, all of which were subsumed under the unifying theme of Collaboration for the Intelligent Age. On the final day of the summit, a group of five leaders conducted a panel discussion entitled Empowering People with Digital Public Infrastructure. Members of this panel included Brendan Vaughan (Editor in Chief – Fast Company magazine), Hoda Al Khzaimi (NYU Vice Provost, AbuDhabi), Rodrigo Liang (CEO, SambaNova), Rene Saul (CEO, en Capital), and Avathon CEO Pervinder Johar.
The theme of the panel was exploring the ways in which the digital public infrastructure (DPI) is reshaping communications and operations, public/private collaboration on key elements like digital identity, payments, and data exchange. In particular, the group discussed the ways in which such partnerships are working to ensure equitable distribution of the advantages conferred by DPI. Moderator Brenda Vaughan kicked off the conversation by raising the question of what DPI even means and how it is affecting people today. Subsequent topics of conversation explored issues as diverse as the development of smart cities, differences in payment methodologies across various countries, the rise of digital identities, and the role that artificial intelligence (AI) is playing in keeping effective and efficient the world’s $100 trillion infrastructure as it inexorably ages.
“At Avathon, our focus is on the physical infrastructure of the world,” Johar noted in his remarks. “When we talk infrastructure, we’re talking about power, energy, transportation, e.g., planes and ships, basic materials. But the reality is every human being in the world relies first on our basic core infrastructure, without which there is no food and there is no water.”
He noted that one of the world’s biggest challenges–and a key focus of Avathon’s business–is creating the tools necessary to keep existing global infrastructure functioning safely and economically. This is particularly challenging in nations where much of the infrastructure is routinely more than fifty years old.
“First, it’s important to keep in mind that much of the infrastructure we live with every day was created decades ago,” Johar said. “Aircraft are a great example. A couple of years back it was reported that Air India bought surplus aircraft from Delta Airlines. Delta does not manufacture planes. These were old aircraft that had seen many years of service in a developed economy in the U.S., but which U.S. consumers no longer wanted to utilize. The same story happens routinely with trains, automobiles, and other transportation assets. Even on the defense side of things, many of the world’s front-line aircraft, ships, and other hardware are many decades old. Same goes for power generation and transmission assets. It’s all part of that $100 trillion figure cited earlier. Keeping all of this infrastructure operating safely and efficiently is a challenge we are embracing every day using AI tools.”
The inconsistency of global infrastructure–age, quality, upkeep, and operating cost–was explored in depth by the panel members, with all agreeing that the challenge is immense and unlikely to get any easier in the coming decades as costs rise, population grows, and the climate evolves.
“DPI has to first include the core infrastructure that everyone relies on,” Johar asserted. “But before we can even talk about that, we have to ask how are we going to pay for it? Yes, we need to figure out how to get from point A to point B, which is our transportation assets, but how do we keep the power on and how do we keep the water flowing? With all of the work that’s going on around the world, how do we keep our cities secure? How do we live safely and efficiently? What exactly are these smart cities and what are they buying us? But it’s not all just about keeping up existing infrastructure. There’s an entire future that we’ve been working with Boeing on, for example, one involving autonomous air traffic control systems. So, yes, it’s important–critical–to keep up our existing infrastructure. But there’s also a future that needs to be created.”
Interested in learning more about Avathon’s AI-powered DPI solutions? Explore our Industrial AI platform.
