During the Opening Ceremony of WebSummit 2024, Luís Montenegro announced that a Portuguese LLM will be released by the first trimester of 2025. A LLM is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) model used in software like ChatGPT. The Prime Minister considered the Portuguese LLM a “critical step” for various fields like education or public administration. The LLM will allow students to have “an AI tutor adapted to our education curricula and provide each citizen the access to public administration services in a simpler way.”

During his speech, Luís Montenegro mentioned that Portugal is a country “with a high quality of life”, highlighting that the companies may be “inspired to create innovation and turn our society more developed.” The Prime Minister recalled the Portuguese History, claiming that the country always could be innovative, recalling that at the WebSummit there is a community that shares their knowledge, in Portugal.


Carlos Moedas, Mayor of Lisbon, was also present at the opening ceremony, highlighting the 14 unicorns that chose Lisbon to open their offices. The mayor believes that Lisbon achieves it after “believing, because [the city] had discipline and was audacious.”

The numbers of WebSummit 2024

The WebSummit 2024, in Lisbon, was attended by 71.728 attendees from 153 countries, as mentioned in a press release. There were in total 3050 companies, showcasing their work to 1066 investors, which could see 953 speakers from the various themes. The WebSummit 2024, in Lisbon, also counted the presence of 2005 media workers, such as journalists and photographers.

There were “62 trade delegations from around 36 countries, showcasing some of the world’s most innovative startups”, with the representation of countries from all over the world, WebSummit 2024 counted the presence of companies like Meta, Huawei, IBM, EDP and Visa.

The women's presence in the event was a relevant factor, as 44 per cent of the start-ups were founded by women, 42 per cent of the attendees were women and 37 per cent of the speakers were also women.

Author

Deeply in love with music and with a guilty pleasure in criminal cases, Bruno G. Santos decided to study Journalism and Communication, hoping to combine both passions into writing. The journalist is also a passionate traveller who likes to write about other cultures and discover the various hidden gems from Portugal and the world. Press card: 8463. 

Bruno G. Santos