The Web Summit technology conference opens in Lisbon on Tuesday, and China is presenting its achievements there: dancing robots and low-cost artificial intelligence (AI) models. AFP reports this. The event will run until Thursday.
Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave said at the opening on Monday: "More and more often, the superstars of the future come not from California. They come from China." According to him, among the speakers are more than 50 "superstars" from leading Chinese AI laboratories, robotics startups, automakers, and quantum and energy companies.
However, the start of the meeting was overshadowed by a scandal around Nvidia, the American company that dominates the market for chips for advanced AI systems. Its head, Jensen Huang, acknowledged an extramarital affair, reportedly with a woman whom US intelligence services suspect of spying for China. Beijing rejects these accusations.
Among the participants is Tao Zhang, co-founder of the fast-growing Chinese company Manus AI (according to AFP, Meta tried to buy it but failed). He will present Manus 2.0, an agent capable of autonomously performing a sequence of tasks. Li Chen, co-founder of the robotics company Unitree, and William Shi, European president of its competitor Agibot, will also speak. Agibot's robots took the stage on Monday, danced and performed tai chi movements. Demonstrations of humanoid robots from Galbot and Ubtech Robotics are expected.
Leo Haojun Wang, co-founder of Pony.ai, which provides AI systems for thousands of robotaxis in China and, recently, in Europe, will also come. Deli Zhao, co-founder of electric vehicle maker Xpeng, which intends to establish mass production of flying cars, will also be there; a prototype was shown at the opening on Monday.
China is seeking new markets amid weak domestic demand and restrictions in most of the US market on national security grounds. Chinese open-weight AI models, which can be downloaded for free and partially modified, are attracting attention from European companies, including Orange, Renault, Revolut and Siemens.