Eyes in Davos focused on global risks

New technologies, such as digital, will be a key topic in many discussions. While the technologies are likely to cause disruptions across industries and societies, Schwab believes they could also help underdeveloped regions, such as some in Africa, to catch up and narrow the gap with other areas.

Chen Shengqiang, CEO of JD Digits, a leading Chinese digital technology company, will be among many tech chiefs from the country attending the WEF this year.

He believes the data-driven economy continues to transform global value chains and to promote more economic players from different regions worldwide into the wave of globalization.

"Represented by digital technology, the Fourth Industrial Revolution changes a company's internal operating model, generates a data-driven global economy, helps to build a community with a shared future for mankind and to break 'self-centered consciousness' in the concept of value," he said on Saturday.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, an ardent advocate of multilateralism and action over climate change, will share his vision on Thursday in a conversation chaired by Borge Brende, president of the WEF.

Guterres reiterated the importance of multilateralism in a speech at the UN headquarters in New York on Friday. "As we look to the challenges we face-from climate change to migration to terrorism to the downsides of globalization-there is no doubt in my mind that global challenges require global solutions," he said.

"No country can do it alone. We need multilateralism more than ever,"

Guterres said his "absolute priority for 2019" is to make sure the UN is a "platform for action to repair broken trust in a broken world and deliver for people."