“We have no time to lose” – the EU Commission estimates half a trillion euros for AI investments

According to new estimates from the European Commission, massive investments are needed to make the EU competitive in the field of artificial intelligence. About 500 billion euros are needed for more computing power and the development of our own top models, said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen after the conclusion of a summit in Dublin.

According to von der Leyen, the money will come from private investments and funds from the new long-term EU budget. She also announced that she would present a proposal to finance technological sovereignty.

EU Council President António Costa originally declared the topic of artificial intelligence to be the main topic of the summit. The discussions were particularly about how the EU can keep in touch with the USA and China.

After the deliberations, French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X that Europe has everything it needs to stay in the race. “We have no time to waste.” He called for relying on European tech companies for AI contracts. “If a European company develops a leading AI model, it must find in Europe the computing power to train it, the capital to grow and the customers to deploy it,” he said. “If we want our companies to grow here, we will also give them their first big orders here.”

“On December 2nd, I will join the Dutch Prime Minister in Paris to bring together the Tech Creators, those leaders who are already building the technologies that Europe needs,” Macron announced.

The head of Europe's largest AI company, Mistral AI, was also at the meeting to give a lecture to the heads of state and government. Mistral AI is based in Paris.

The heads of state and government also discussed security issues. The Nobel Prize winner in physics and former Google researcher Geoffrey Hinton gave a lecture on this. He is considered one of the most important minds behind modern AI systems and warns of the dangers of the technology.