Exploring Europe’s push to take AI off the screen and onto the factory floor

What happened

For Simone Di Somma , founder and chief executive of Milan-based Cyberwave , it’s a question that gets to the heart of why artificial intelligence (AI) is so much harder to build for the physical world. Factories and warehouses run on processes that a general-purpose model knows nothing about, and in an environment where machines can break and people can get hurt, there’s little room for error.

“That’s why you need the infrastructure to connect AI with the real world,” Di Somma tells Tech Funding News on stage during the Wave by Vento conference in Turin, Italy, this week. Alongside fellow Italian entrepreneur Elisa Seghetti , co-founder and CEO of London-based Saturn Dynamics , Di Somma was speaking on a panel titled “Atoms Are Back,” which explored what happens as AI moves off the screen and into the physical world.

And, of course, what it takes to build that future from Europe. For Di Somma, Europe’s advantage lies in the features that have long set it apart, and it starts on the factory floor.