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July 10, 2026

‘Physical AI is Europe’s last chance to be useful to the world’

At Paris's Machina conference, European robot makers jostle for attention — and for an answer to the question: can the continent keep up?

Éanna Kelly

5 min read

Two-legged robots, four-wheeled ones, and even some sporting Nike trainers gathered in Paris this week as the world's biggest robotics companies took stock of how far the industry has come — and how far it still has to go.

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Éanna Kelly

Éanna Kelly is a contributing editor at Sifted, and writes Startup Life , a weekly newsletter on what it takes to build a startup. Follow him on X and LinkedIn

Deeptech & AI

Deeptech & AI

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The people, companies and trends shaping European AI and deeptech.