The News
San Francisco, CA – As Silicon Valley’s decisions increasingly shape the priorities of governments, markets, and societies worldwide, Semafor will convene the leaders building artificial intelligence and other breakthrough technologies with the leaders responsible for shaping strategies, policies, and institutions around them. Semafor’s inaugural Silicon Valley & The World annual convening will be the highest-level initiative bringing together top technology founders and CEOs, senior government officials, key figures in finance, and decision-makers from the world’s most consequential economies for two days of live journalism in Silicon Valley, November 2026.
Building on the success of the 2026 annual convening of Semafor World Economy, Semafor’s Silicon Valley & The World is the definitive new initiative to connect builders of transformative technologies with the leaders shaping their global impact.
Through Semafor’s signature live journalism, the convening will examine the forces now sitting at the center of global leadership: artificial intelligence, national competitiveness, energy demand, capital formation, security, labor markets, and the shifting relationship between technological power and public authority. The convening will be led by Semafor Technology Editor Reed Albergotti and Semafor’s newsroom, including Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith, Executive Editor Gina Chon and editors covering Washington, China, the Gulf, energy, business, and the global economy.
Silicon Valley & The World is led by a growing Advisory Board: business and technology leaders who will help Semafor shape the platform’s strategic direction and engagement with the world’s most consequential decision-makers.
Advisory Board Co-Chairs:
Divesh Makan, Founding Partner, ICONIQ
Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft
Jensen Huang, Founder, President, & CEO, NVIDIA
Ruth Porat, President & Chief Investment Officer, Alphabet and Google
Lisa Su, Chair & CEO, Advanced Micro Devices
Advisory Board:
Daniela Amodei, President, Anthropic
Nikesh Arora, Chairman & CEO, Palo Alto Networks
Sarah Friar, Chief Financial Officer, OpenAI
Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder, LinkedIn and Manas AI
Dina Powell McCormick, President & Vice Chair, Meta
Chuck Robbins, Chair & CEO, Cisco
In this article:
Justin’s view
“The decisions being made inside this 50-square-mile corridor in California are reshaping economies, alliances, and governments worldwide — and yet there is no credible, global initiative that connects the builders of these technologies and the leaders responsible for shaping their nations’ strategies in navigating their impacts. We’re proud that so many titans of the tech industry have joined us to welcome the world to Silicon Valley,” said Justin B. Smith, Semafor CEO & Co-Founder. “Semafor was built for this moment — uniquely positioned to distill the new world economy’s most complex forces into clarity, and to convene the leaders navigating them across borders, sectors, and systems.”
Ben’s view
“The Silicon Valley AI boom is the greatest economic story in the world, carrying the American economy and reshaping global politics and societies,” said Ben Smith, Semafor Editor-in-Chief & Co-Founder. “Reed Albergotti and our journalists have been ahead of the curve on the big ideas and the big scoops at the heart of this story, and we’re thrilled at the list of newsmakers joining us to answer the hard questions business and political leaders face.”
Know More
Silicon Valley & The World marks Semafor’s next major global initiative, following the outsized success of Semafor World Economy this past April, which convened more than 500 global CEOs, finance ministers, and central bank governors alongside a full slate of White House officials and Cabinet secretaries — the largest gathering of its kind on US soil.
With Silicon Valley & The World, Semafor will extend its live journalism model to the defining economic, political, and strategic force of the next decade: artificial intelligence. The initiative will create a direct bridge between Silicon Valley’s builders and the global leaders responsible for shaping how AI reshapes economies, societies, institutions, and national power.
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ABOUT SEMAFOR
Semafor is the world’s fastest growing independent news media company that delivers intelligence through its reporting and live convenings. Founded in 2022 by veteran media executives Justin B. Smith and Ben Smith, Semafor provides intelligent, transparent journalism that cuts through the noise and distills complexity for leaders to navigate the new world economy. With a global sensibility, reach, and reporting hubs now spanning from Washington DC, Silicon Valley, Wall Street to sub-Saharan Africa and the Gulf, Semafor’s journalists around the world power its suite of daily first-read email briefings and signature live journalism convenings. The flagship Semafor World Economy, anchored in Washington DC, is the largest annual gathering of top global CEOs in North America; Semafor’s convening on emerging economies, The Next Three Billion, is held annually at UNGA and expanded this year to South Africa, East Africa, and UAE. In 2024, Semafor was named to Fast Company’s Annual List of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for “rewriting the story” on international reporting.