China Makes a Tech Splash in Portugal

Beijing dabbles in diplomacy at Web Summit.

Visitors take pictures with their mobile phones during a performance of the Unitree robot at the Web Summit at Parque das Nações in Lisbon. November 11, 2025, 3:54 PM Comment icon View Comments ( )

In the pantheon of global tech gatherings, few have grown as quickly or at the scale of Web Summit. The conference, which began in Dublin in 2009 before moving its annual flagship edition to the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, in 2016, has become a prime fixture of the conference circuit—so much so that conference organizers warned attendees in an email last week that Lisbon’s airport was running short of private jet landing slots. “We would strongly advise flying commercial into Lisbon,” they advised. “

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