China's rapid automation and global competition

Welcome to a new episode of the EUVC Podcast, where our good friends Dan Bowyer, Mads Jensen, Lomax Ward, and Andrew Beebe (Managing Director at Obvious Ventures) dig into the headlines shaping Europe’s venture, policy, and tech future.

This week, the crew dives deep into automation and AI’s real-world impact:
Amazon’s plans to replace half a million jobs with robots, the question of whether AI can truly spark a new industrial revolution in Europe, the UK’s new AI sandbox experiment, and an update on the long-awaited 28th Regime—the EU’s bid for a unified startup entity.

They also unpack China’s automation surge, Europe’s productivity crisis, and whether policy and politics are keeping pace with the technology curve.

🎧 Here’s what’s covered

00:24 Amazon’s Robot Push - Replacing 500,000+ jobs with automation — what it means for Europe’s workforce and competitiveness.

05:26 Automation & Employment - Europe’s 31M manufacturing workers, Germany’s 80% robotized auto sector, and whether job “shifts” beat displacement.

09:37 Productivity & Policy Tension - Can Europe keep up as Asia deploys 70% of new industrial robots? And how do we balance growth with labor protection?

16:00 AI’s Second Industrial Revolution - John Thornhill’s “Industrial Revolution 2.0” thesis — does Europe have the institutional capacity to absorb and profit from AI?

21:24 Enterprise AI Failure Modes - Why 50–75% of AI implementations flop — and why it’s a skills and structure problem, not a tech one.

26:05 White Collar Co-Pilots - AI as enabler, not replacer — from doctors to lawyers — and why the change must happen at human speed.

28:00 China’s Lead & Europe’s Complacency - China’s robot factories, biotech dominance, and why European policymakers “don’t feel the fire.”

34:15 Politics & Technocracy - Why Europe needs tech-literate leaders before the next wave of disruption turns social.

38:00 UK’s AI Sandbox - A new initiative to let startups test AI in the wild — but is it another FCA-style fix or a token gesture?

41:30 AI in the NHS - Where regulatory sandboxes could actually work — in diagnostics, admin automation, and cutting waiting lists.

48:00 EU’s 28th Regime - A pan-European startup entity proposal — regulation vs. directive, and whether it can fix the admin drag across borders.

55:00 The German Bottleneck - How 200+ local laws still choke innovation — and why fixing Germany alone could free €800M+ annually.

59:00 Deal of the Week: CoalMine - Plural backs UK brain-computer interface startup CoalMine with a $102M Series A — Europe’s Neuralink moment.