FIS Stanford 2025

This keynote address will tackle the complex and shifting economic landscape facing asset owners, exploring the implications of geopolitical uncertainty, macroeconomic trends, policy responses and emerging risks.

Long-term investors are facing a new geopolitical and macroeconomic environment which threatens the foundation of traditional portfolio construction. Capital flows are shifting as globalisation gives way to modern mercantilism, changing the outlook for traditional asset classes. This panel will consider how investors can build more resilient portfolios in an environment of greater uncertainty and volatility.

Includes table discussion

Rising geopolitical tensions are reshaping traditional portfolio construction, prompting investors to reassess the role of US assets and evaluate opportunities across regions. This session will reveal how various opportunities across other regions stack up given the potential impact of tariffs, a declining US dollar, and shifting capital. It will include the outlook for real assets, including infrastructure and renewables, and which type of assets and regions remain attractive in the face of changing political cycles.

Legendary venture capitalist Vinod Khosla will share insights gained over decades of early-stage tech investing. His long track record includes investments in companies such as Google, Amazon, Square, Stripe, Affirm, and DoorDash, and his VC firm was the first to invest in OpenAI. Khosla will draw on this vast experience to discuss what he looks for in companies with world-changing potential, emerging tech trends, and how he manages the sector’s high attrition rate.

Tech companies have driven sharp gains across the US share market in recent years. Meanwhile, governments are hoping that AI and tech will drive a surge in productivity and tackle rising debt levels. This expert panel will dissect the underlying drivers propelling listed tech companies, whether that success can continue, and where the next wave of innovation will come from.

Professor Kotkin – one of the world's foremost experts on geopolitics and authoritarian regimes – will provide his latest insights into the fast-changing state of world affairs. Rising tensions across geopolitical fault lines have significant potential to create market shocks as the Trump administration continues to redefine the role of the US on the world stage. As the era of peak global free trade comes to an end, Professor Kotkin will unpack this new global landscape and the implications for asset owners.

Artificial intelligence is set to affect almost 40 per cent of jobs around the world, replacing some and complementing others, according to the IMF. The implications for the global economy are profound. This panel of experts will unpack the latest advances in AI, identify trends, and discuss how asset owners can capitalise on AI-driven growth opportunities while navigating the risks.

This interactive session will showcase the tools and capabilities of AI technology in understanding causal macroeconomic linkages. The audience will interact with the Artificial Investment Associate to understand the strengths and weaknesses of AI to assist with investment decision-making.

Technology is not just reshaping the investment landscape, it is powering institutional portfolios in a range of new ways. AI is being used to improve portfolio management, risk assessment, and trading execution, but the potential comes with a range of risks, from model decay, herd behaviour in algorithms, and the challenges of validating complex models. While direct, large investments in cryptocurrencies remain nascent, digital assets are increasingly becoming part of the mix. Asset tokenisation is allowing 24/7 instant transfers using cryptographically protected digital wallets, while yields can be accrued in real-time to the second. Stablecoins are transforming cross-border trade and collateralising wallet-based finance and derivatives trading. This panel will delve into these evolving areas of financial technology and their transformative impact on institutional investment strategies.

Includes table discussion

This session looks at how Norges Bank Investment Management is using an internally developed engine powered by AI to monitor and measure its portfolio managers’ skills, aiming to identify behavioural biases, improve decision making, efficiency of trades and save costs.

This session will put AI numbers into perspective around the predicted rise in energy required to power AI. It will examine energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, and water consumption across AI's full lifecycle and discuss the potential for AI to unlock significant resource efficiencies across the economy. Like previous general purpose technologies, AI could shift the world's economic operating model, and potentially even reduce energy production by optimising other sectors.

An extra $30 trillion of investment is needed by 2050 to meet net zero targets, according to the World Economic Forum. This presents a key opportunity for long-term asset owners, but the sector is not without risks. This panel of investors will discuss why they are still committed to the climate transition in an increasingly fractious political landscape, where they are investing, and how they are managing the embedded risks within their current portfolios.

Digital infrastructure is transforming the world and data centres are at the heart of the revolution. AI is driving unparalleled demand for data storage, processing power, and energy. This session will unpack the drivers of digital infrastructure returns in the context of escalating valuations and a politically uncertain climate transition. It will also delve into the sector’s long-term sustainability as ongoing innovations continue to make many long-standing business models obsolete.

The US economy faces a huge infrastructure funding gap. The pressure is building as energy grid demand skyrockets in the face of booming demand from the rise of AI and data centres. But while the private sector successfully owns and operates some infrastructure, it remains effectively cut out of others, such as airports, which remain in state, local, or municipal hands. Is there a better way? What are the paths to unlocking new infrastructure investing and driving growth? Among other things, the panel will examine the Australian and UK models of long-term capital collaboration and asset recycling.

Secretary Condoleezza Rice dealt with an array of complex issues during a time of geopolitical upheaval as the 66th US Secretary of State under President George W. Bush. She will draw on those experiences, as well as her background in business, including as a member of the board of directors of AI software company C3.ai and investment firm Makena Capital Management, to provide valuable insights about the state of the world and the intersection of business and politics.

This session with former Deputy National Security Advisor for the Trump Administration will discuss why investors must look beyond the trade war and see that the US v China battle is about a fight for the 21St Century, a zero sum contest for global supremacy that includes artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and the military.

The role of investors have become more challenging as several global macro forces shift the foundations of traditional portfolio construction. The role of the US is changing in an increasingly fracturing geopolitical landscape, the promise and threat of AI remains an open question, while the climate transition continues. This panel of investors will discuss how they are considering these issues to build more resilient, yet high-performing portfolios.

Stanford academic and former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh is one of the frontrunners to succeed Jerome Powell as US Federal Reserve chair in 2026. In this keynote address, he will share his exclusive insights into the Fed’s evolving role, macroeconomic leadership, and what this current time of geopolitical change means for long-term investors.