Milan Digital Week 2026: the Generative City and e-Novia’s Physical AI Investor Day
Milan Digital Week 2026 brings “The Generative City” to town, and e-Novia takes part ...
Milan Digital Week returns this year, the citywide event that from September 30 to October 4, 2026 opens new perspectives on the transformation processes reshaping how we live in the present. This year’s edition carries the title “The Generative City,” under the patronage of the Municipality of Milan. At its heart is the Smart City Lab, the central hub where ideas, people and technologies meet to build the intelligent city of tomorrow, alongside a network of Knowledge Hubs spread across the metropolitan area, meeting points where citizens and companies explore new perspectives together.
Within this program, e-Novia brings its own contribution with the Physical AI Investor Day, taking place on October 6 in Milan at Copernico Isola. It is a natural extension of e-Novia’s relationship with Milan, the city where the group was founded and where it keeps investing in industrial innovation. The day brings together citizens, investors and companies around the startups of our Venture Studio currently raising capital, with a discussion on Italy’s role in Physical AI and a look at the model that takes them from research to market. Attendance is by registration; the full program of the week is available on the official Milan Digital Week website.
This year’s theme, the generative city, fits well with what the e-Novia group does, because Physical AI is precisely about the point where artificial intelligence stops living only on screens and starts acting on the machines, buildings and physical processes that make up a city and its industry.
By Physical AI we mean the convergence of artificial intelligence, sensing and physical systems, an approach that makes industrial products and processes more adaptive rather than treating artificial intelligence as a digital layer added on top of the physical world. It is a trend that speaks directly to Italian industry, long strong in mechanics and automation, which now has the opportunity to position itself as fertile ground for the next generation of Physical AI companies. How concrete the shift already is shows in the numbers: according to an analysis by Crunchbase News, venture capital funds directed sharply rising investment toward robotics and intelligent physical systems startups in the first half of 2026.
e-Novia’s Venture Studio exists to bring the most promising deep tech innovations to market, turning them into scalable industrial companies. It starts with scouting universities and research centers to find the solutions with the strongest technological maturity and industrial potential; once an initiative is selected, we join as co-founders and take it from product design to industrialization, working alongside industrial partners and investors.
Weart, for instance, develops wearable haptic technology that reproduces the sense of touch at a distance; its TouchDIVER device lets users physically perceive virtual or remote objects, with applications ranging from entertainment to professional training. It is a case that shows well what it means to take Physical AI beyond the lab and give it a recognizable product and market. We write more about it on the page dedicated to Weart.
A second example is Blubrake, which developed a fully integrated ABS system for e-bikes, s-pedelecs and e-cargo bikes, and whose journey reached an exit, a result that shows how the Venture Studio method can take an idea from early research all the way to a concrete market outcome. The story is told in the case study dedicated to Blubrake.
The full Milan Digital Week program, is available on the official event website, where it is also possible to register to stay updated. Those who want to learn more about the event, see the speakers and agenda, and register can find details on the page dedicated to the Physical AI Investor Day.
