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Dispatch from Davos: Rehabilitating the Supply Chain

February 3, 2025

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Introduction

Access to the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting is as rarefied as the air atop the Swiss Alps, and Exiger had a seat at the 2025 summit’s table. CEO Brandon Daniels, also a WEF Governor, addressed several top tier sessions on issues like trade warfare and gen AI innovations that will shape this year’s global economy.

The invitation-only gathering in Davos, Switzerland, took place amid uncertainty about a new U.S. administration and a fragile cease-fire in the Middle East. Leaders in tech, business, and public policy met — often behind closed doors — to discuss geopolitical tensions and supply chain challenges that may follow in the near term. A key theme Daniels stressed during the four-day forum was “rehabilitating the supply chain” from threats of modern slavery, tariff exposure, and cyberattacks.

This dispatch offers an exclusive view into select sessions — from main stage panels to closed-door conversations — exploring key insights and takeaways that will impact the future of supply chain operations and resilience.

The Insider View on Tariffs and Export Bans

One of the premier venues at Davos was the first-ever USA House — hosted by Exiger in partnership with the bipartisan veterans advocate With Honor — for public and private meetings promoting U.S. interests on the global stage. Here, ABC News Correspondent Deirdre Bolton held a private, invitation-only conversation with Daniels and Alex Panas, Global Head of Industries at McKinsey, on reimagining supply chains with AI to navigate geopolitical turmoil and the rise of trade warfare.

The top issue on everyone’s mind: tariffs. “We’ve just had a flood of new customers asking us to map their supply chains and to do tariff analysis,” Daniels said.

Another urgent topic for business leaders now was the export bans on antimony, gallium, and germanium imposed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). “Everyone wants to know: ‘What parts do we have, what systems are compromised if we don’t have access to these [minerals]?’”

Daniels said that Exiger’s AI platform provides powerful insights because it can break down the composition of parts and components to the raw materials. “We can tell you that, for instance, antimony is in over 11,000 parts in the Defense Industrial Base and is connected to hundreds of systems and is critical to almost one hundred.”

Watch more of this exclusive interview:

Trade Warfare Looming on the Horizon

The new U.S. administration’s proposed use of tariffs cast a large shadow at Davos, as the potential impact on businesses and the global economy is massive.

Daniels noted the speculative buzz and gave his take live from Davos in an interview with Bloomberg TV: “The number one question is what is the current trade warfare going to look like over the next 60, 90, 120 days? Everyone wants to understand what the major superpowers of the world are going to do to rebalance their economies and to rebalance the global position.”

Addressing the tariffs, Daniels expected a focus on areas where the U.S. can gain a competitive edge and safeguard intellectual property.

“I’d imagine that these tariffs are going to continue to focus on the areas where we want to be competitive, whether that’s in electrification of vehicles or quantum computing or advanced microchips in AI.”

He concluded that tariffs may also be a lever to compel more equitable treatment. “You’re going to see areas where we want to make sure that how U.S. companies are being treated by China is not different than the way that Chinese companies are being treated by China right now,” he said, citing the PRC’s weaponization of the Periodic Table as an example.

The potential impact of tariffs on supply chains this year — and how organizations can stay resilient in the face of tariffs — is one of the seven major factors explored in this report, Supply Chain Resilience: 7 Factors to Watch in 2025.

Watch the full Bloomberg interview from Davos:

The Existential Threat of Modern Slavery

The panel “Revealing the Real Scale of Modern Slavery” explored the existential threat posed by this abusive labor practice. An estimated 50 million people are victims of modern slavery today, scattered across supply chains and industries. Daniels called it “the challenge of our time,” and Exiger is committed to eliminating it.

Exiger is proud to be the sole supply chain provider in the Global Data Partnership Against Forced Labour, which launched during the Davos summit. The group is an invitation-only WEF community of leaders committed to driving cross-sectoral and global leadership in the fight against forced labor in supply chains. Its members include Cisco, The Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, and the Anti-Slavery Collective, one of the NGOs that Exiger partners with — along with Hope for Justice and the Slave-Free Alliance — to rid global supply chains of forced labor.

Daniels likened the widespread, entrenched nature of forced labor in supply chains to a disease that can result in a catastrophic event, similar to a heart attack. To stay healthy, supply chains need rehabilitation, which demands visibility. Case in point: While the U.S. recently added 37 companies tied to Uyghur forced labor to the UFLPA Entity List, Exiger’s technology uncovered 13.1 million shipments tied to those newly added companies since the start of 2024.

“We want to expose this data to the world and make it so that NGOs, public-private partnerships, and corporations can have a top-down view of the supply chain,” he said. “Supply chain visibility will decrease risk, increase resilience, and reduce cost no matter what.”

AI technology in the 1Exiger platform is uniquely positioned to help organizations identify and mitigate modern slavery risks while mapping global supply chains with precision. Exiger’s Proactive Intelligence serves as an advanced overlay on 1Exiger’s capabilities, giving a real-time operational control experience to see how different events will impact operations, allowing for quick, informed decisions.

“We have many customers like Oshkosh, Raytheon and others that look for opportunities to save cost in their supply chain,” Daniels said. “In other cases, it’s to add resilience. We support Schneider Electric with assuring critical products and supply chains. And then we also have customers that look to manage compliance.

“And that is where the modern slavery aspect of supply chain visibility comes about. And where Exiger is really differentiated is we’re not just a data company, we’re not just a software company. We’re not just a services company. Think of us as the hospital for your supply chains. We’re helping to rehabilitate the supply chain.”

For more of his remarks, watch a highlight segment.

Visibility: The Antidote for Supply Chain Cyberattacks

Cybersecurity was on the menu for a high-powered breakfast panel. Daniels discussed AI as a strategic necessity for combatting cyber threats and emphasized the urgency to secure software supply chains, which have been the targets of major breaches in recent years.

“Cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility,” he said. Building a culture of security is imperative for organizations, including educating employees to be vigilant and aware of possible risks like deepfakes that can mimic familiar faces and voices.

Takeaways from this session include:

The sophistication of AI is double-edged: AI use has become common in cybercrime and requires organizations to fight “fire with fire” and use AI for risk mitigation and preventing disruptions.
Don’t ignore the risks embedded in the operational technology (OT) in your systems. The analysis of SBOMs associated with OT, firmware, and software programs can help you gain an advantage in cybersecurity.

Hear Daniels talk further about this Davos discussion with Schneider Electric’s Cassie Crossley on Cybercrime Magazine’s podcast.

Cybercrime Magazine · Unlocking Resilience. Cyber Risk In OT. Brandon Daniels, Exiger & Cassie Crossley, Author.

“These export and tariff moves, they’re a weaponization of trade. And people want to know at what point does it stop and start to get to a deal.”

Brandon Daniels

CEO, Exiger

Many discussions at the Davos summit highlighted how complex challenges facing global supply chains change by the day and require an advanced tech solution that delivers multi-tier transparency to mitigate risk and bolster resilience.

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