Web Summit Rio, Latin American franchise of global tech and innovation, wrapped up Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, breaking attendance records for the third consecutive year.
The event brought together thousands of attendees looking to connect, learn and stay ahead with the latest digital technology advances and innovations since its launch in 2023.
This year's four-day edition brought a record of nearly 35,000 attendees from over 100 countries and regions, along with about 1,400 startups and over 600 investors.
Artur Pereira, the summit's manager, credits the jump in attendance to the 106 million U.S. dollars in investment for the top 40 startups raised in 2024, about 2.3 million dollars each.
“Startups know that [if] they want to get funded, [if] they want to do business, [if] they want to meet the biggest tech companies in the world, they [need to] come to Web Summit,” Pereira said.
Embraer, a global aerospace company headquartered in Brazil and one of the summit's main exhibitors and investors, held what it called a "startup marathon" in its search for partnerships. With a strong global market presence in commercial, executive, and defense aviation, the company also used the event to highlight how innovation remains central to its growth strategy.
"If we don't apply Artificial Intelligence, if we don't apply new technology to our products, if we don't offer these things to clients who are seeking certain profit margins, we lose our competitivity. So, innovation is not a choice. It is a necessity, and it has always been that way with Embraer,” said Leonardo Garnica, head of corporate innovation of Embraer.
While serious networking and deal-making were the main focus of the summit, there were also lighter sides to the event, for example, a digital rainforest experience, or stepping on the gas in a virtual 3D formula-one driver experience offered by racing giant McLaren.
The event has been extended in the same venue for another five years, until 2030.
Web Summit Rio concludes with record-high attendence
Attempts to curb China's scientific and technological advancement are futile, a fact that has already been proven, said Kishore Mahbubani, former permanent representative of Singapore to the United Nations, in an interview aired Friday.
In an exclusive interview with China Central Television (CCTV) in Beijing, Mahbubani said he had stated this position in one of his articles published in the United States.
"Actually, I published an article, you know the two, I guess two leading journals in the United States on international relations. One is Foreign Affairs and the other is Foreign Policy. And last year I co-authored an article with two other co-authors, saying that all the efforts to stop China's scientific and technological development will fail. And it has failed always. You know, for example, the Soviet Union tried to prevent the spread of nuclear technology to China, China develops its own. The United States didn't want to share its technology on international space station with China. China develops its own space station. So clearly, efforts to stop China in the area of scientific innovation and technological development have failed. And so it'd be wiser for the West, including United States, to work with China other than to try and stop China seek development," he said.
Regarding China's progress on robots, Mahbubani said China is leading the world in the sector and hopes the country will share its expertise with the rest of the world.
"If there's one country that is preparing for the future well, it is China, because one in six human beings in the world is Chinese. But one in three robots in the world is Chinese, and one in two baby robots being born every day is Chinese. So China is producing far more robots than any other country is. So clearly it's preparing for the world of the future when we will have, for example, labor shortages, as you know, as you develop an aging society. So China is wisely investing in robots. But I hope that China will also share its learning and expertise with other countries. Also because the robots like that can also be helpful even to developing countries cause you can enhance the productivity of their populations, of their factories and so on so forth. So the world should be happy that China is leading the world in manufacturing, producing robots," he said.
Attempts to stop China's sci-tech development doomed to fail: former Singaporean diplomat
