Global tech leaders have descended on Europe’s annual Web Summit held in Lisbon, Portugal, to talk about artificial intelligence, robots and startups. The Web Summit 2025 takes place under the shadow of global tensions over hardware, software and the resources needed to build them. The four-day event, also known as “Davos for geeks”, is likely to see over 70,000 visitors from 150 countries, including 2,500 startups and 1,000 investors.With on and off in US-China trade talks, the China’s rise towards tech dominance is the talking point among attendees. Rev Lebaredian, vice president of Omniverse and Simulation Technology at chip giant Nvidia spoke about the importance of Chinese market. Lebaredian echoed the American chip giant Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang who had warned earlier this month that China will domainte the race to master next-generation artificial intelligence. Huang said that China will do so despite the fact that Nvidia’s most advanced chips — used to train and run AI systems — are unavailable in China due to US export restrictions.
What Nvidia VP Rev Lebaredian said on China
Talking about China, Nvidia’s vice-president of simulation technology, Rev Lebaredian, said, “Half the world’s computer scientists and computer engineers who are on the frontier of these technologies are in China.” He added, “If we try to exclude them, they will find a way to go develop the same things.” Nvidia exec further cautioned, “We will lose the opportunity to work with them and benefit from the work that they do.“Lebaredian reports directly to CEO Jensen Huang. Put simply, Lebaredian is in charge of building robot brains.Nvidia cannot sell its most advanced AI chip to ChinaThe Trump administration recently made it clear that it is not planning to allow Nvidia to sell its most advanced AI chip, known as the Blackwell, to China. “As for the most advanced chips, the Blackwell chip, that’s not something we’re interested in selling to China at this time,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said.The remarks echoed comments made by President Donald Trump, when he declared that the most advanced chips made by the world’s most valuable company would be reserved for U.S. companies and kept out of China and other countries.Trump had hinted he might discuss the chips with Chinese President Xi Jinping at their summit in South Korea, but ultimately said the topic did not come up.
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