Web Summit opened this year with Chinese humanoid robots on stage. 2 days later, a storm closed the venue. On Thursday, Paddy Cosgrave, the event’s founder and chief executive, sat down with journalists to talk about both. These are my notes from that press briefing.
The robots
A technology journalist asked Cosgrave why Web Summit was giving Chinese robotics companies so much space. He said opening night was meant to show where technology is heading, and he backed the choice with figures.
The 10 companies with the most installed robots in the world are all Chinese. By his estimate, Chinese companies account for about 98% of installed humanoid robots. The 2 companies that appeared on stage on opening night account for about 90% of those deployed.
For now, he said, the future of humanoid robotics looks very Chinese. He added that this could change. Lithuanian humanoid robots might be on that stage within 12 months.
The European complaint
A journalist from Chinese media asked whether European companies had objected to the large Chinese presence, as some did at the consumer electronics fair in Berlin. Cosgrave said he didn’t know how European companies saw it and suggested asking the entrepreneurs. In his view, founders are largely borderless, and technology’s centre of gravity keeps moving: from England and the Low Countries, to Detroit, to California, and on to wherever comes next.
The complaint surprises me. Before the pandemic I went to Hannover Messe, and the Chinese delegation there was always large and always relevant. None of this is new. If European companies are only noticing it now, I think they have been distracted from what is happening in the rest of the world.
What it means for Europe
I have written a lot this year about European digital sovereignty, mostly about cloud services, data and software. Robotics brings the same question to physical machines, the ones that will work in factories, warehouses and, before long, care homes. Today Europe mostly buys them.
The 98% figure is Cosgrave’s estimate, and I would like to see independent numbers. Even with a wide margin of error, the direction is clear.
Lithuanian robots on stage in 12 months would be a start. Europe will need more than one country and one company to build its own.
The storm and the rebuild
At 6 in the evening on Tuesday, crews started taking the site apart. Web Summit uses more than 30,000 square metres of temporary structures, roughly the size of 3 extra halls, for registration, security checks and networking. Hundreds of people worked into the early hours of Wednesday removing them, along with kilometres of electrical cable. Some had already been on site for 20 to 24 hours.
Wednesday’s programme was cancelled. The rebuild started at 6 that evening, and nobody knew whether the full site could open until the engineers signed it off early on Thursday. By 9 in the morning, 24 stages were running. Many ran until 5 in the afternoon instead of the usual 3 to fit in Wednesday’s speakers. Cosgrave called it the busiest Thursday Web Summit has ever had, and he thanked the National Police, Civil Defence and his own team.
Asked whether the government or the organisers made the call to cancel, he said the government got it right and he stood by the decision. Caution came first.
The day off-site
Wednesday didn’t stop the networking. Attendees met in hotels and gave the day names like “storm summit”, “wet summit” and “spa day”. Some of them built websites and apps. From 6 in the evening, hundreds of dinners and side events went ahead across Lisbon.
Use of the event’s mobile app was up on last year, with attendees from 150 to 160 countries. Exhibitor leads, which Web Summit counts as business generated for exhibitors, were up 11%.
Refunds and insurance
On refunds for people and companies who missed Wednesday, Cosgrave said the team would deal with requests case by case. He gave no estimate of losses and said he had no disagreement with the government. Hotels and some restaurants did very well that day while the event area was quiet, and he left the overall economic impact for accountants to work out.
He expects to know more about insurance in the coming days. For the previous 24 hours, he said, his focus had been working with the police to make the site safe. The recording doesn’t make clear whether Web Summit has cancellation insurance.
The venue’s future
One arena was excellent on Tuesday, he said, but a neighbouring area had leaks, including a “waterfall” inside one building. He hasn’t yet worked out whether that can be fixed over the winter. If this kind of weather is what climate change brings, it raises questions for him about the venue’s future.
Asked whether the shutdown could affect talks to extend the contract beyond 2028, he didn’t answer directly. He pointed out that the 1.2-kilometre site, with room for temporary structures, lets Web Summit host more people than the buildings alone could hold.
Housing protests
Asked about the protests over affordable housing, Cosgrave defended the right to protest and to take direct action against perceived injustice. He criticised how Britain treats protesters who throw red paint or break windows.
He said young people’s futures have been stolen and they should be angry. A leader of the French protest movement was speaking at the event, and Web Summit has hosted people who took direct action against large American technology companies. His one criticism of the protesters was that they should have come earlier in the week.
São Paulo and Paris
In his opening remarks, Cosgrave said there were more startups at Web Summit from São Paulo than from Paris. Someone from Paris pointed out that São Paulo is 3 times the size, and he accepted they might have a point. His wider argument was about growth spreading out from California, and within Europe from west to east.
He remembered when almost no Brazilians came, apart from those already living in Portugal. When Web Summit started its event in Rio, some people feared it would keep Brazilian companies away from Lisbon. Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, then president of Portugal, called it a billboard for Brazilian companies with global ambitions. Cosgrave sees Portugal as their natural way into Europe.
Climate
Asked what the shutdown teaches about technology and climate, Cosgrave said Web Summit has a dedicated climate track. He said climate concern has fallen off the agenda over the past 2 years, and he linked that to leaders of American technology companies and to a president he chose not to name. He hopes people with great wealth and power will accept their responsibility to others and to the planet.
He also mentioned his 10-year-old, who spent the day at the event in the rain with some Irish friends. They said it wasn’t even a bad day.
What stays with me
The number I keep coming back to is 98%. Even if Cosgrave’s estimate is generous, Chinese companies have spent years building these machines, installing them and learning from every deployment. That experience compounds, and it doesn’t show up in a single trade fair.
Europe still has a lot to work with. It has industrial customers who understand automation better than almost anyone, from car plants in Germany to logistics centres in the Netherlands. It has strong robotics research in its universities. What it has been short of is companies that turn that research into humanoid robots sold in volume, and European buyers willing to sign early contracts with them.
That second part matters as much as the first. In my work on digital sovereignty, the pattern repeats: Europe funds the research, then buys the finished product from someone else. Robotics is still early enough to break that pattern, if European manufacturers, hospitals and care providers are prepared to be first customers.
Cosgrave’s remark about Lithuania is the one I’d like to hold him to. A European humanoid robot on the Web Summit stage next November would mean a European company found the customers, the funding and a reason to be there. I hope to see it.
Technology’s centre of gravity has moved many times. The places that gained were the ones that built things and found buyers early. Europe can still be one of them.