Lanyard-wearing visitors explored bright blue-and-pink stands under a grey November sky, on the lookout for the latest in quantum computing or humanoid robots.
Over four days, the "Davos for geeks" is set to welcome over 70,000 visitors from 150 countries, including 2,500 startups and 1,000 investors, according to organisers.
Microsoft grabbed the limelight Tuesday with an announcement of a $10-billion AI data centre it will build in Portugal with British firm Nscale.
The company in a statement termed the scheme "one of the largest investments in AI computing capacity in Europe".
"The demand, particularly over the last five months within the AI space has gone quite insane," Nscale's chief product officer Daniel Bathurst told AFP.
- China on minds -
China's climb towards tech dominance is in the thoughts of many attendees.
"Half the world's computer scientists and computer engineers who are on the frontier of these technologies are in China," Nvidia's vice-president of simulation technology Rev Lebaredian told AFP.
The American chip giant's chief executive Jensen Huang warned earlier this month that China "is going to win" the race to master next-generation artificial intelligence.
He believes it 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 export restrictions.
"If we try to exclude them, they will find a way to go develop the same things," Lebaredian said.
"We will lose the opportunity to work with them and benefit from the work that they do."
Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave had told attendees at Monday's opening night event that "this year, more than any year before, it's clear that the era of Western tech dominance is fading."
- Robots and autonomous cars -
Leading Chinese manufacturer Unitree was running demonstrations of its humanoid robots on Monday.
And a few metres away, Chinese 3D printer maker Bambulab's stand showed off machines able to crank out physical objects within a few hours -- themselves designed based on text prompts to a generative AI model, rather than traditional software tools.
Such uses show off a transition for AI from "purely software, abstract plays, into... the physical world," Lebaredian said.
US speakers in the field will include Amazon Robotics boss Tye Brady and Robert Playter of Boston Dynamics.
Uber's operations chief Andrew McDonald mused on stage about a "transition from a labor dominated industries... into entirely robot dominated" as the company gears up to work with Nvidia on self-driving cars.
Waymo, a subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet, has said its driverless vehicles will arrive in London next year. And several Chinese manufacturers including Baidu and Pony.ai have Europe in their sights for an automated car rollout.
- AI and chips -
The struggle for dominance may be fiercest in generative artificial intelligence.
Tuesday speaker Cristiano Amon, boss of American chip developer Qualcomm, has announced AI chips squaring up to sector heavyweight Nvidia and challenger AMD.
He talked about future phones as "just a big processor that runs AI".
Monday's opening night had starred Swedish AI firm Lovable, one of several firms allowing users to create apps and websites via a chatbot without coding experience.
"We're seeing 100,000 new products built on Lovable every single day," chief executive Anton Osika told attendees.
- Tech sovereignty -
In tech, "the competition has been intensifying and it's really hard," European Commission digital chief Henna Virkkunen told attendees, as the 27-nation EU is increasingly fearful for its technological sovereignty amid rising trade and political tensions.
She highlighted 8,000 EU startups working on AI and called for a buy-European rule in public procurement, saying it was "important that we are not dependent on one country or one company when it comes to critical technologies."
As the Commission pressures American and Chinese platforms to tighten measures for underage internet users, American games publisher Roblox -- whose game platform is popular with minors -- will outline how it plans to verify players' ages.
dax/tgb/rl
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