EU says AI race ‘far from over’ as bloc pledges 50-billion-euro investment boost

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday said the EU would mobilize a total of 200 billion euros ($206.5 billion) for artificial intelligence investments in Europe, stressing that the race for AI leadership had not yet been won by China or the U.S.

The sum includes previously-announced 150-billion-euro funding from investors and industry, which Von der Leyen said the bloc will top up by another 50 billion euros.

Speaking at the AI Action Summit in Paris, Von der Leyen said it would be the “largest public-private partnership in the world for the development of trustworthy AI,” focused on industrial and mission-critical applications and powering European “gigafactories” for processing large models.

“We want Europe to be one of the leading AI continents, and this means embracing a way of life where AI is everywhere,” Von der Leyen told an audience of big-name tech figures and political leaders in the French capital.

“Too often I hear that Europe is late to the race — that China or the United States have already gotten ahead. I disagree, because the AI race is far from being over,” she said.

“The frontier is constantly moving, leadership is still up for grabs, and behind the frontier is the whole world of AI adoption… Bringing AI to industry-specific applications and harnessing its power for productivity and for people, and this is where Europe can truly lead the race.”

Von der Leyen said Europe needed to focus on a unique approach to AI development, including a focus on science and technology, adoption in complex applications using its wealth of industrial manufacturing data, and bringing together talent from different countries and sectors.

She added that the EU wants to ensure every innovative European company has the ability to access the AI power it needs through supercomputers, and to replicate the collaborative success of CERN, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory based in Geneva, Switzerland.

Positive uses of AI will include boosting competitiveness, protecting security, shoring up public health and democratizing access to information, she explained.

However, critics have raised a host of concerns about the proliferation of the technology, including its heavy power usage and the potential for the spread of disinformation through the use of manipulated “deep fakes.”

Ahead of the Paris summit, French President Emmanuel Macron shared a video on social media featuring a montage of deep fakes of himself.

Macron also said Sunday that his country’s AI sector would receive 109 billion euros ($112.6 billion) of private investment in the “coming years,” comparing the pledge to U.S. President Donald Trump’s $500 billion private AI investment project “Stargate.”

Addressing the summit Tuesday, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said America would block efforts by “authoritarian regimes” to “strengthen their military intelligence and surveillance capabilities, capture foreign data and create propaganda to undermine other nations’ national security” using AI.