Keynote exploring both long-standing challenges and emerging priorities in competition and antitrust policy. Key themes will include mergers and acquisitions, market concentration, and potential structural remedies.

Artificial intelligence is transforming economies, industries, and creative sectors at a pace few could have anticipated. These technologies bring unprecedented opportunities for innovation and growth, yet they also raise important questions about the adequacy and adaptability of existing competition and intellectual property (IP) frameworks, both in the United States and internationally.

This session will examine how AI intersects with competition policy and IP law, and how these dynamics are shaping the global economy. Panellists will discuss potential Section 8 enforcement in the AI industry, along with concerns around information sharing and the risk of collusion. The conversation will explore consolidation trends, vertical integration, and key partnerships among leading players, while also considering how antitrust enforcement, cross-border cooperation, and legal adaptation can help sustain open, dynamic, and ultimately, innovative markets. With jurisdictions taking increasingly divergent approaches worldwide, the panel will also assess whether meaningful international convergence is achievable, and what such alignment, or the lack of it, could mean for the future of AI governance.

Technological leadership has long anchored the economic strength and global leadership of the US. Now, amid intensifying geopolitical rivalry, the reach of major international firms and their advanced technologies is more deeply intertwined than ever with national priorities and strategic interests worldwide. Competition authorities must therefore remain vigilant, not only for anticompetitive behaviour, but also for emerging risks such as dynamic pricing in response to high tariffs and other policy shifts.

In this context, panellists will examine how domestic competition policy intersects with broader foreign policy objectives, how strategically significant markets are approaching regulation, and the extent to which antitrust enforcement can bolster both innovation and economic resilience in a fragmented global environment. With international perspectives, speakers from outside the US will also reflect on the significance of American technological leadership and on efforts underway in other regions to balance, complement, or, in some cases, reduce its influence.