It was the Global Manufacturing and Industrialization Summit, the latest major international conference to take over (part of) the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

When Pittsburgh was first announced as the location of GMIS’s inaugural America edition, everyone from Gov. Tom Wolf to the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development issued statements about the honor. Previous GMIS events have been in Dubai and Yekaterinburg, Russia. The summit is co-chaired by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and the United Arab Emirates.

The panels were star-studded — at least when it comes to Pittsburgh tech.

Bryan Salesky, CEO of Pittsburgh-based autonomous vehicle company Argo AI, spoke with Carnegie Mellon University professor Martial Herbert about another buzzword that had been on previous panelists’ lips: automation.

“The field has evolved tremendously over the past decade or so,” Mr. Hebert said. And that has meant tighter collaboration between academic institutions and industry, which he described as a “complete transformation.”