The State of Tech — The European Edition of Saturday 18 April 2026: Google unveils Gemini Robotics-ER 1.6 with spatial understanding for industrial inspection, while AGIBOT declares 2026 Deployment Year One for embodied AI across retail and logistics. xAI launches a multilingual speech-to-text API to challenge incumbents, Taiwan's TSMC faces helium supply disruptions amid geopolitical tensions, Belgium enforces NIS2 cybersecurity audits across essential sectors, and Meta cuts 8,000 jobs citing AI-driven restructuring.

