The World Economic Forum (WEF), long known for promoting centralized influence over global governance, is now stepping into the heart of emerging technology regulation.
In partnership with the United Arab Emirates, the WEF has launched the Global Regulatory Innovation Platform (GRIP), a two-year initiative aimed at shaping how artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and other advanced technologies will be governed worldwide.
While framed as an effort to help governments keep pace with fast-moving innovation, GRIP positions the WEF to exert significant pressure over national regulatory demands. The project’s stated deliverables include a Global Regulatory Playbook, a Regulatory Future Readiness Index, and a Global Regulatory Innovation Hub, all of which are designed to influence how states craft their policies around new technologies.
“Innovation moves fast. Regulation must too,” said Børge Brende, President of the World Economic Forum. “GRIP enables governments to co-create policy frameworks that are agile, anticipatory, and ready for the technologies shaping our future.”
But behind the rhetoric of agility and inclusivity lies a deeper concern: the WEF’s expanding role in pushing specific regulatory frameworks that mirror its long-standing agenda of tightening control over digital speech.
This is not a neutral facilitator stepping in to help governments. It is a well-connected body with a record of advocating for top-down approaches to information governance, particularly in the world of online content.
In recent years, the WEF has frequently called for greater regulation of the internet, framing free expression concerns as secondary to the need to combat misinformation and “harmful content.”
These calls have often aligned with proposals to give tech companies and governments more authority to define and suppress disfavored narratives. GRIP now offers the WEF another vehicle to embed those priorities into the very structures governing AI development and deployment.
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