Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming a geopolitical tool, forcing Europe to develop alternatives to US AI models. This was stated by European Commission Vice-President Henna Virkunen in an interview with the Financial Times.
According to Virkunen, who is also the EU Commissioner for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, the EU fears that it could become “dependent on third countries for critical AI technologies“. She explained that some countries have the right to deny other countries access to their AI models and use this power for their own interests.
The publication cites the US decision to impose export controls on anthropic models as an example of this situation. According to Virkunen, the neural networks that control the economy “not only manage the economy“, but also have “a major strategic asset“ at the geopolitical level. In this regard, the European Commissioner added: “it is important for the European Union to build its own technological sovereignty“.
In June, Brussels presented a package of measures to ensure strategic sovereignty, aimed at reducing dependence on American technologies by supporting European alternatives in sectors such as semiconductors, cloud storage and artificial intelligence models. In the future, the EU plans to increase the construction of European data centers, use local cloud storage services Scaleway and OVHcloud Mistral, and promote its own artificial intelligence technologies, such as the French-language Mistral AI model.