Biggest NY Tech Week ever shows Gotham's AI and robotics poised to challenge Silicon Valley's dominance
The Big Apple is getting bigger when it comes to artificial intelligence and robotics.
Those growing industries will be the center of attention at NY Tech Week 2025, running June 2–8. It's set to be the largest iteration of the conference yet, with more than 1,000 events — more than half of which deal with AI — spread across all five boroughs and a total of 60,000 RSVPs.
3 A sign advertises the 2024 iteration of NY Tech Week, presented by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Last year, there were about 730 events across the city. This year, there's over 1,000.
Courtesy of Andreessen Horowitz / Tech Week
'It's an enormous milestone,' Julie Samuels — president and CEO of Tech:NYC, a nonprofit network of companies and entrepreneurs that is hosting multiple events — told NYNext. 'It's amazing how diverse our tech ecosystem is and that so many people will be here exchanging ideas.'
The week's standouts include 'Next Play,' led by IBM and centered on the intersection of sports and AI, on June 2; Tech:NYC's 'Decoded Futures Social Impact AI Showcase' on June 6; and panels and salons hosted by the likes of Anthropic, OpenAI, Mistral and Perplexity.
For the first time ever, robotics will be the focus of over half a dozen events — a leap from zero last year.
3 Tech Week is a decentralized conference made up of meetups, panels, and demos, effectively turning New York City into an open platform for innovation.
Courtesy of Andreessen Horowitz/ Tech Week
On June 2, New York Robotics and the NY Tech Alliance will host 'Exploring Embodied and Physical AI' at Civic Hall in Union Square. The event will feature NYU researcher Anya Zorin and her project RUKA — a robotic hand developed with Professor Lerrel Pinto at the General-purpose Robotics and AI Lab — which can sense and respond to touch. 'AI's all the buzz, right, but not everyone realizes that robotics is such a huge part of the AI story,' said Randy Howie, co-founder and managing partner of New York Robotics. 'Robotics is AI in the physical world.'
Elsewhere during the week, founders will pitch their startups in a literal moving elevator at Hudson Yards and swing racquets at a 'Pickleball and Tech Pals' tournament in Central Park. And the city's biggest players — including Amazon Web Services, JPMorgan Chase, and Google — will host panels and private mixers.
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) first launched Tech Week in Los Angeles in 2022. In 2023, it expanded to San Francisco and New York City.
3 Google is joining industry heavyweights including Amazon Web Services and JPMorgan Chase as hosts for events during NY Tech Week.
Christopher Sadowski
While Silicon Valley still paces the nation in terms of venture capital, NYC is increasingly carving out its own tech identity — particularly in the realm of hard tech, which includes robotics, advanced manufacturing and other engineering-heavy ventures that demand more than code.
This story is part of NYNext, an indispensable insider insight into the innovations, moonshots and political chess moves that matter most to NYC's power players (and those who aspire to be).
Tech now accounts for more than 10% of the city's GDP (up from 6% in 2013) and has driven 14% of all job growth in the past decade, according to Samuels.
'New York is uniquely positioned,' said Ryan Musto, senior associate at Alumni Ventures and host of the 'America Assembled: Robotics & Trade' event on June 4. 'You don't have to go far back to remember when New York was the manufacturing headquarters of North America. It's in our DNA.'
For most Tech Week events, admission is free but attendance is capped.
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