Peace as infrastructure: how finance and AI could redesign stability

War is economically convenient for specific actors — only by making peace equally profitable, through AI diplomacy and new financial instruments, can the system change. From Tech Emotion Summit 2026

Tech Emotion Summit 2026 — the financial systems behind contemporary conflict

At Tech Emotion Summit 2026, hosted at Triennale Milano, discussions around artificial intelligence, venture capital and technological infrastructures intersected with the economic architecture of instability. Conflict emerged as the consequence of systems organised around extraction, exclusion and asymmetrical access to resources.

Peace economy became one of the recurring themes of the summit. Speakers approached it as a framework describing how incentives shape social cohesion, political stability and long-term economic continuity. The discussion unfolded across diplomacy, predictive technologies, investment structures and geopolitical risk. The central question concerned whether peace could be treated as an investable infrastructure — one connected to governance, financial systems and institutional resilience.

Among the speakers, Caryl M. Stern and Donata Garrasi approached the issue from complementary perspectives. Stern focused on the operational reality of reconstruction inside fragile territories marked by conflict, displacement and institutional collapse. Garrasi analysed the structural dimension of peace economies: the mechanisms through which economic systems either reduce instability or reproduce it over time.

The summit positioned these conversations within a broader reflection on the future of technological and financial systems. Artificial intelligence appeared as part of geopolitical infrastructures capable of influencing negotiations, strategic forecasting and conflict prevention.

Reconstruction systems, institutional trust and the long aftermath of conflict

For Stern, reconstruction extends far beyond the physical rebuilding of infrastructure: ‘One of the most important lessons I learned during my years leading UNICEF USA is that reconstruction is not simply about rebuilding infrastructure — it is about rebuilding trust, systems, and human dignity. Roads, schools, and hospitals matter enormously, but they only become sustainable when people believe they have a future within their own communities.’

Stern exposes the fragility generated when institutions fail to provide continuity after conflict: ‘If parents cannot feed their children, access healthcare, or earn a stable income, instability returns very quickly. Economic opportunity is therefore foundational. That means local job creation, functioning markets, access to education, and investment in community-level businesses — not just large-scale national projects.’

The emphasis remains local. Functioning schools, healthcare systems, community businesses, social participation and economic continuity emerge as infrastructures no less important than roads or logistics networks. Fragility surfaces through systems unable to sustain everyday life once emergency interventions are withdrawn.

Garrasi develops a parallel argument from the perspective of political economy: ‘Peace economies are economies where incentives are organised around social cohesion, participation and inclusion. Economic and social policies promote gender equality, opportunities for young people and long-term sustainable development. These are also systems where violence remains under institutional control rather than becoming an autonomous economic tool.’

The definition reframes conflict through systems of resource concentration and exclusion: ‘Most wars originate directly or indirectly from economic disputes. Directly, when parties fight for the control of resources such as oil, minerals or forests. Indirectly, when political power also means controlling wealth distribution and excluding others from access to that wealth.’

The consequence is that reconstruction itself functions as a structural economic process tied to inequalities, governance and access to opportunity. Both Stern and Garrasi insist that instability persists when the conditions generating exclusion remain economically profitable for specific actors.

Stern addresses this through the importance of local participation: ‘The most successful reconstruction efforts I witnessed were the ones where local communities — especially women, educators, health workers, and youth — helped shape priorities from the beginning. People support what they help build.’

Post-conflict reconstruction collapses when communities remain economically dependent while political and financial decisions continue to be designed externally.

AI diplomacy, predictive systems and technological infrastructures for negotiation

One of the central aspects of Garrasi’s intervention concerned the emergence of technologies designed specifically for diplomatic mediation and conflict prevention. At a summit focused on artificial intelligence, this shifted the conversation toward geopolitical infrastructures capable of shaping negotiations and strategic responses: ‘There is an entire new area around technologies for peace. We are talking about investable, profitable and replicable solutions — not NGOs doing humanitarian work, but real economic sectors.’

The systems discussed include AI-driven negotiation models, conflict simulations and digital twins capable of reproducing geopolitical scenarios through real-time data analysis. Garrasi describes technologies that test multiple negotiation strategies simultaneously while identifying possible areas of agreement between conflicting parties: ‘Human beings are not only limited in conflict situations, they are also biased. These technologies can help introduce completely different perspectives from those we have worked with for decades.’

Technology acts as a geopolitical infrastructure influencing political forecasting, military escalation, humanitarian access and diplomatic timing. The question becomes whether these same infrastructures can also support de-escalation and long-term negotiation strategies.

Garrasi describes the use of digital twins capable of modelling how different actors respond under shifting negotiation conditions. Humanitarian corridors, ceasefires, resource-sharing agreements and political concessions can be tested virtually across multiple simultaneous scenarios: ‘We can identify zones of possible agreement between parties and test negotiation strategies in a much shorter time and with much greater accuracy than relying only on traditional diplomatic analysis.’

Another aspect discussed concerns leadership profiling systems based on large-scale behavioural analysis. Garrasi explains that geopolitical decision-making has always involved psychological assessments of political leaders, while artificial intelligence now increases both speed and complexity: ‘Today technologies allow us to build much more dynamic leadership profiling systems capable of identifying possible entry points even with highly uncooperative leaders whose decisions may lead toward conflict rather than peace.’

The summit also addressed the contradiction shaping contemporary AI culture. Most investment surrounding artificial intelligence remains concentrated in productivity, financial optimisation and consumer applications. Diplomatic mediation, conflict prevention and geopolitical de-escalation still occupy a marginal position within mainstream technological investment ecosystems.

Diplomacy, peace finance and the economic cost of permanent instability

Another recurring theme throughout the summit concerned the weakening of institutional diplomacy. Garrasi describes a geopolitical landscape in which traditional multilateral organisations appear increasingly unable to function as stable mediators: ‘We are living in a historical moment where institutions and leaders that were supposed to represent the interests of peace economies are no longer playing that role.’

The observation reflects a broader international context marked by military expansion, geopolitical fragmentation and rising investment in defence systems. According to Garrasi, diplomacy itself has progressively lost strategic and economic centrality, despite the financial consequences generated by prolonged instability: ‘For every ten billion invested in weapons, even allocating one percent to diplomacy could prevent many conflicts.’

This financial imbalance explains why the summit connected peace economies with investment systems and private infrastructures rather than humanitarian aid alone. Garrasi insists that economic actors may increasingly operate as geopolitical actors because instability directly affects markets, logistics, industrial continuity and long-term investment strategies: ‘There are countries where important economic opportunities exist, but institutional investors avoid them because they are considered risky. At the same time, new financial instruments are emerging that could facilitate investments aligned with peace finance.’

The summit therefore framed peace as a question of infrastructural continuity. Market stability, institutional trust, logistics, access to education and local economic autonomy become interconnected variables within broader geopolitical systems.

Stern identifies a similar fragmentation inside humanitarian structures: ‘Multiple organisations frequently work in parallel with different mandates, timelines, and reporting structures. Communities can become overwhelmed by disconnected initiatives that do not reinforce one another. Effective peacebuilding requires coordination, consistency, and humility.’

Reconstruction weakens when diplomatic, economic and humanitarian systems remain fragmented, while conflict itself continues to operate through highly interconnected financial and political networks.

The purpose economy — peace as long-term infrastructure

Across both interventions, the conversation moves toward a wider reflection on the purpose economy — meaning the capacity of economic systems to generate long-term continuity rather than short-term extraction.

Instability itself has become structurally embedded within contemporary markets. Wars influence energy systems, migration patterns, industrial production, food chains and investment flows at a global scale. Peace therefore becomes an infrastructural condition directly connected to economic continuity.

For Stern, the role of younger generations remains central to this process: ‘Children who feel safe, educated, and valued can become the foundation of a more peaceful society. At its core, sustainable peace is built when people believe their lives — and their children’s lives — can improve through cooperation rather than conflict.’

At Tech Emotion Summit 2026, peace emerged as a long-term infrastructure tied to governance, logistics, investment systems and institutional continuity. Artificial intelligence, finance and diplomacy appeared throughout the summit as interconnected systems shaping geopolitical stability long before conflicts become visible on the ground.

The market for war has existed for decades. The discussions in Milan revolved around another possibility: stability itself evolving into a strategic economic sector.