Top executives on AI, crypto and global trade

The chief executive of Ferrari on Thursday said the company was prepared for potential U.S. tariffs on European automakers.

“We are ready with some countermeasures,” Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna told CNBC’s Robert Frank at CONVERGE LIVE in Singapore on Thursday.

“We are watching what’s going to happen in the next month, next weeks … we are on the same boat in terms of tariffs,” he added.

European automakers have been grappling with trade policy uncertainty in recent months, with the threat of U.S. import tariffs raising alarm bells among many original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

Tariffs are expected to have a profound impact on the auto industry, given highly globalized supply chains and a heavy reliance on manufacturing operations across North America, particularly Mexico.

Read the full story here.

— Sam Meredith

Ferrari will continue to sell cars with traditional combustion engines even as it gears up to launch a fully electric vehicle this year, CEO Benedetto Vigna said during a fireside chat at CNBC’s CONVERGE LIVE.

Vigna said last month that the company was on track for the landmark unveiling of its first electric car, scheduled to occur on Oct. 9 in Maranello, Italy.

One design element at Ferrari that won’t change is the steering wheel as the firm believes “cars should have a man behind it, not a computer,” he added.

— Kevin Lim

CEO of HashKey Capital Chao Deng said success in Hong Kong’s “crypto experiment” could sway China toward a friendlier position on digital assets.

“Hong Kong is always the gateway to the China mainland market. Hong Kong is always used as the lab for experiments, either in [economics] or new industries,” he told CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal at CONVERGE LIVE in Singapore on Thursday.

“From our conversations with regulators [in Hong Kong], I think in a way they are trying their best to use the ‘one country, two systems’ as an experiment,” he said, adding that if it’s successful, the mainland government may reconsider its stance toward the crypto and Web3 industries.

China banned cryptocurrency trading in 2021, but Hong Kong — a Special Administrative region of China —has been pushing to become a regional crypto hub in recent years.

— Dylan Butt

Despite some progress in reducing global waste, pollution remains a major problem for society.

Jacob Duer, president and CEO of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, said three billion people around the world have no access to waste management.

Svanika Balasubramanian, co-founder and CEO of nonprofit rePurpose Global, said creating a circular economy, where plastics and other waste can be reused, will require hundreds of billions of dollars in investments.

“All the existing commitments put together, even if met, will only make a dent in the problem by 7%,” Balasubramanian said.

— Kevin Lim

Food delivery services currently require lots of manpower but the future may be characterized by the widespread use of robots and drones, according to speakers at a panel on supply chains.

Tomaso Rodriguez, CEO of Talabat, a Middle East food and groceries delivery service, said that homes in the future may not even need kitchens since food delivery services could provide all meals.

“I think people really under-evaluate how food delivery will become something of our everyday life in the future,” he said. “People think that is already big business … but actually it’s going to grow much, much, much more in the future. Maybe we’re not going to have kitchens anymore in our houses at some point.”

— Kevin Lim

The private equity market is likely to experience a shake-up, with some fund managers unable to raise cash amid difficulty in monetizing current investments.

Serena Tan, CEO of Gaia Investment Partners, a Malaysian fund of funds manager, said exits from existing private equity funds are still challenging because of lackluster activity in the initial public offerings and mergers and acquisitions markets. This meant there was less cash to recycle into new private equity investments, she said.

Many private equity funds may have raised their last funds, Tan added.

— Kevin Lim

The U.S. appears to be losing its shine among Singapore-based family offices, judging from comments made during a panel discussion at CONVERGE LIVE.

Srihari Kumar, a principal at his family’s Singapore-based single family office LionRock Capital, said the firm’s U.S. allocation has fallen to 25% from 40%, as it looks at opportunities in China and Europe.

Tuck Meng Yee, a partner at JRT Partners, another Singapore-based family office, cited opportunities in China as well as Indonesia, the latter where stocks are trading at levels last seen during the Covid-19 pandemic, he said.

— Kevin Lim

Former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday said he is fearful that U.S. President Donald Trump’s approach to securing peace in Ukraine could set an alarming precedent.

“My hope is that what Donald Trump is doing is using quite startling language and quite startling approaches to try and unlock situations, to try and create a situation where Ukraine wants to negotiate peace, Russia wants to negotiate peace, and to get there,” Cameron told CNBC’s CONVERGE LIVE in Singapore on Thursday.

“My fear is always that it goes beyond that [and] Trump’s view of the world is more that the big power in the neighborhood is sovereign, and you shouldn’t interfere with what they want to do,” Cameron said.

He said that could be “very worrying” for the Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — which, like Ukraine, all share a border with Russia.

Read the full story here.

— Sam Meredith

Prospects for a broad deal between the U.S. and China have improved following Donald Trump’s election as president, two former diplomats said during a panel discussion at CNBC’s CONVERGE LIVE.

David Adelman, former U.S. ambassador to Singapore, said Trump’s tough stance on trade put him in a stronger position to overcome domestic opposition when negotiating with Beijing, much like when former U.S. President Richard Nixon reestablished ties with China in the 1970s.

“No one can accuse Trump of being soft on China,” he said.

Kishore Mahbubani, a prominent former Singapore diplomat, said both the U.S. and China know there will be no winners in a conflict between the two giants.

— Kevin Lim

Asian family offices are not pulling back on impact and sustainable investing, a senior UBS banker said, unlike in the U.S. which has had pullback in these areas.

LH Koh, managing director and head of global family and institutional wealth for APAC at UBS, said that Asian family offices have a lower baseline compared to the U.S., however.

— Kevin Lim

Former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron described U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest comments on Russia as “hugely reassuring” in ensuring Ukraine’s independence.

Trump said he could impose a “devastating” financial blow if Russian President Vladimir Putin refused to accept a 30-day ceasefire negotiated by the U.S. Ukraine agreed to the terms of the ceasefire, if Russia accepts the plan.

Cameron described Putin as deeply nationalistic, anti-Western and anti-democratic and said the Russian leader couldn’t be trusted.

— Kevin Lim

Former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron expressed concerns about U.S. President Donald Trump’s views on free trade, which risk stoking inflation and slowing global economic growth.

“I’m worried about this because I’m a free trader. I believe that if you maximize free trade, it isn’t a one country wins and the other country loses, it can be a win-win situation and it normally is,” Cameron told CNBC’s CONVERGE LIVE in Singapore on Thursday.

“I fear that Donald Trump’s view of the world is he sort of looks at a country and says if you’ve got a surplus in trade with me, you’re ripping me off. That’s not the case. If every country in the world had a surplus, who would have the deficit? Mars, Jupiter? So, I don’t think that view of the world is right,” Cameron said.

— Kevin Lim

Former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna, Binance CEO Richard Teng and LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil are among the key speakers scheduled to take part in CNBC’s inaugural CONVERGE LIVE event on Thursday.

The sessions get underway at 9:40 a.m. Singapore time (9:40 p.m. ET), with Britain’s David Cameron poised to discuss advancements in AI, the tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and the notion of American exceptionalism.

Talabat CEO Tomaso Rodriguez will take part in a session focused on how to speed up global supply chains later in the morning, while Ferrari’s Vigna will discuss the outlook for the luxury Italian carmaker shortly after 1 p.m. local time.

Alongside HashKey Capital CEO Chao Deng, Binance’s Teng is scheduled to discuss the Trump crypto boost from around 2:40 p.m. local time.

— Sam Meredith

Grab’s co-founder and CEO Anthony Tan is pushing ahead with incorporating AI into his business, and said those who don’t embrace the technology will eventually be left behind.

“Humans who don’t embrace AI in a company will be replaced by humans who embrace AI,” the Malaysian businessman told CNBC’s Christine Tan at CONVERGE LIVE in Singapore on Wednesday.

The company, which is Southeast Asia’s ride-hailing and super app, has incorporated AI into training platform Grab Academy, while Tan himself has a personal AI coding assistant. “I can’t code myself, but I use it to build my own projects, for research, for Grab,” he said.

“If you were to embrace it, it not only makes you superhuman, it makes your company superhuman,” Tan said of AI adoption.

Read the full story here.

— Sawdah Bhaimiya, Ernestine Siu, Lucy Handley

Tech leaders weighed in on the future of artificial intelligence, a hot topic at CNBC’s CONVERGE LIVE in Singapore on Wednesday.

Alibaba‘s chairman Joe Tsai talked about the impact of Chinese AI Start-up DeepSeek’s open-sourced R1 model in January and said that it has led to a “proliferation of applications.” 

“I think the so-called DeepSeek moment is really not about whether China has better AI than the U.S., or vice versa. It’s really about the power of open source,” he said.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff questioned investments in data centers due to AI such as DeepSeek. “What you just saw with DeepSeek, and also with Alibaba, with their Qwen model is that you don’t need this kind of technology. So I think it has to be rethought. Exactly what are you doing and why are you doing this?” he said of multi-billion dollar investments in data centers.

Meanwhile, Dean Carignan, AI innovations lead at Microsoft, said AI can take away drudgery, “and allow the human to provide the things that only a person can do: creativity, innovation, coalition building, inspiration, motivating others,” he said.

Trust is a key consideration for Cisco, according to SVP Guy Diedrich. “You don’t get access to data [for AI] unless you’re trusted, and the way that you’re trusted … is to provide security and be transparent,” he told the CONVERGE audience. In a “couple” of years, AI will be “embedded in everything we do,” he added.

Ganesha Rasiah, chief strategy officer at HP, said that some jobs will be “eliminated” by AI. “But we don’t foresee a world in which there’s a significantly elevated level of unemployment,” he said.

Read the full story here.

— Dylan Butts, Lucy Handley

U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs are a major concern among U.S. and international business leaders, with industry titans warning of trouble ahead.

Speaking at CNBC’s CONVERGE LIVE in Singapore, Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio said on Wednesday: “Tariffs are going to cause fighting between countries … I’m not necessarily talking about military. But think about U.S., Canada, Mexico, China … There will be fighting, and that will have consequences.”

Trump’s 25% tariffs on aluminum and steel imports took effect Wednesday, while U.S. markets have been in turmoil over the duties this week.

Meanwhile, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff described reciprocity between countries as “good” if they treat each other the same way. If you can’t put the what and the how in a consistent, clear and meaningful way, then you could end up with high levels of volatility and conflict,” Benioff said.

Read the full story here.

— Lucy Handley

Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong kicked off proceedings at CNBC’s inaugural CONVERGE LIVE.

On an action-packed first day, Gan said that many in Asia were “watching with anxiety” as U.S. President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports came into effect. He added, however, that the region remains a “beacon of growth opportunities.”

U.S. hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio warned America’s mounting debt problems could lead to “shocking developments,” underlining the issue is of “paramount importance” for the world’s largest economy.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said the cloud software giant intends to invest an additional $1 billion in Singapore over the next five years. The investment is designed to accelerate the country’s digital transformation and the adoption of Salesforce’s flagship AI offering Agentforce.

For more highlights, take a look back at CNBC’s extensive coverage of the event’s first day.

— Sam Meredith