Artificial intelligence experts brought together by the European Commission’s AI Office are showing divergent views on the extent to which “Europe must develop its own cutting-edge technology stack” (see EUROPE 13880/1). Some argue in favour of European capacities across the entire value chain, considering that competitiveness and sovereignty reinforce each other, while others warn against the idea that it would be necessary to develop national alternatives for every technology.
Given the potential of cutting-edge AI to profoundly transform the European economy, security and society, the experts consider that the European Union must “strengthen its sovereign capacity to access, choose, control and benefit from any cutting-edge AI model”, particularly in the light of recent restrictions imposed by the United States on access to advanced AI models from Anthropic, Mythos and Fable (see EUROPE 13900/36).
They suggest that the EU should aim to host a share of global computing capacity proportionate to its 15% share of global GDP, compared with a share currently estimated at only 5%, while recalling that scaling up cutting-edge AI models raises major environmental and security challenges, as well as potential trade-offs that must be taken into account from the outset.
Cooperation with trusted partners such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India was also identified as a strategic opportunity to strengthen both the Union’s capabilities and its bargaining power, including access to cross-border computing capacity.
The experts identified four main obstacles to the EU’s attractiveness for AI investment. Above all, they highlighted computing infrastructure and the energy needed to run it - an urgent priority for the next two years - as well as financial constraints, notably the lack of capital for companies in the growth phase and the need for greater legal certainty in the areas of copyright and data protection, elements considered decisive in enabling AI models to be trained within the Union.
The Commission will now group the various recommendations according to their strategic priority and work on their implementation. (Original version in French by Ana Pisonero Hernández)