What’s going on at WEF on Thursday Jan. 23

German Finance Minister Jörg Kukies said it’s imperative that his country “embarks on a path of economic growth” while simultaneously combatting structural weaknesses.

“We’ve just gotten revised down growth forecasts for the IMF again,” Kukies told CNBC’s Karen Tso and Steve Sedgwick at the World Economic forum in Davos.

“It’s really important that we embark on a path of economic growth,” he added.

Kukies became Germany’s finance minister in November, taking over from Christian Lindner, who was sacked by Chancellor Olaf Scholz after months of wrangling and clashes over the economy and budget.

Lindner’s dismissal effectively brought an end to the former German ruling coalition, which was made up of Scholz’s Social Democratic Party, Lindner’s Free Democratic Party and the Green party. That led to Germany’s national election being moved forward to Feb. 23.

“The election is all about economics,” Kukies added.

— Sophie Kiderlin

Germany’s finance minister Jörg Kukies told CNBC some changes were needed to the country’s so-called debt brake.

The fiscal rule — enshrined in the German constitution — limits how much debt the government can take on, and dictates that the size of the federal government’s structural budget deficit must not exceed 0.35% of the country’s annual gross domestic product.

“I do think that there has to be some targeted reforms to the debt bake because we have so much need for infrastructure spend on railways, on roads, on bridges, on education, on 5G, 6G infrastructure etcetera. So a lot of public infrastructure has to be provided,” he said.

“But the vast majority of investment in our country has to come from the private sector. So in that sense, in addition, we also have to set the right incentives.”

Read more about the debt brake here.

— Sophie Kiderlin

The chief executive of Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas says U.S. President Donald Trump’s climate retreat appears to have been overblown.

His comments come shortly after the newly inaugurated president, who’s scheduled to remotely address business and political leaders at the World Economic Forum later in the day, swiftly took aim at low-carbon energy initiatives.

In a standalone executive order, which had been widely expected, Trump on Monday suspended new or renewed leases for offshore and onshore wind projects and halted the leasing of wind power projects on the outer continental shelf.

Vestas CEO Henrik Andersen said he didn’t expect Trump’s return to the White House to result in an overwhelmingly negative proposition for renewable energy companies operating in the country.

“The answer there is I don’t think so because if you look at it and if you take Vestas as an example, we’ve got 45 gigawatts installed in the U.S. already — that’s a third of the installment of wind in the U.S. That’s equal to somewhere around 36 or 37 million households,” Andersen told CNBC in Davos, Switzerland.

“So, whatever you see there, that’s a part of what … I call it affordable, very good electricity and green supply in the U.S.,” he continued.

“And you can read it differently and, of course, most of you have read it negatively in saying he declares an energy emergency, and you see it as a negative. I see it as well in this energy transition, we need a lot more of everything,” Andersen said.

— Sam Meredith

Schneider Electric CEO Olivier Blum said his company was a key beneficiary of artificial intelligence innovation, including the United States’ newly announced Stargate AI infrastructure initiative.

“Of course we have a massive boost from the AI initiative in general,” he said, acknowledging his company’s expected links to the project.

President Donald Trump announced a joint venture Tuesday with OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank to invest billions of dollars in artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States. Schneider Electric last year struck a deal with Nvidia — a leading maker of AI chips — to develop designs for data center cooling systems.

“We are on the two sides of AI,” Blum said, noting that the French automation and energy company both supports AI data centers and employs the technology to help streamline business operations.

“We clearly see that it’s becoming a reality. It helps to amplify everything we do,” he said.

— Karen Gilchrist

Infosys, an Indian technology outsourcing firm, has lowered the risk it faces from any potential curbs to U.S. work permits, according to its chief executive.

Salil Parekh, chief executive of the tech giant, said the company had adopted a three-pronged strategy to prevent disruption to its business in case President Donald Trump acts on his threat to curb immigration.

“Over the past five to six years there’s been a change to the way the company operates,” Parekh told CNBC at Davos. “We’ve built what I would call a resilient model.”

The Infosys chief said that 60% of its 40,000-strong U.S.-based employees are not dependent on H-1B visas, the U.S. work permit. He also pointed out that the company now employs 8,000 people in Canada and 2,000 in Mexico as part of its “near-shore centers.”

Lastly, Parekh said Infosys now performs more work offshore — remotely from India — than before.

Standing alongside the technology chief executives of Oracle, ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Softbank, Trump said Tuesday that he is taking a more nuanced view of the U.S. work permit program and is open to more qualified immigrants coming into the U.S.

“We have to let really competent people, great people, come into our country,” Trump said of engineering employees at tech giant Oracle and OpenAI.

— Ganesh Rao

The big event on Thursday will be President Donald Trump’s keynote address this afternoon. The president, newly inaugurated on Monday to begin his second term in office, is due to address WEF via video link at 5 p.m. Davos time.

Other high-profile figures due to speak on Thursday include Javier Milei, the president of Argentina, whose address starts at 10:15 a.m. local time.

WEF panels will cover themes ranging from “Defending the Cyber Frontlines” to Ukraine’s future, financial fragmentation, tariffs and the Middle East.

— Holly Ellyatt

On the corporate front, the CEOs of Vestas, SAP and Schneider Electric will be speaking to CNBC Thursday, as well as the Siemens, Carlsberg and Sanofi bosses.

Germany’s Finance Minister Jörg Kukies, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and the OECD’s Mathias Cormann will also be interviewed.

CNBC-moderated panels include a debate on the technology revolution, featuring Antonio Neri, the CEO of HP, as well as the CEOs of Octopus Energy and iGenius.

— Holly Ellyatt