Europe’s AI Power Play

Plus: Meta’s new hire, Apple kills Clips, Flexxbotics on humanoids, and Roko’s Tip.

Here’s what’s on our plate today:

  • ✍️ Why Europe wants its own AI future.

  • 🧠 Meta hires, Clips dies, humanoids need orchestration.

  • 💡 Why API access isn’t an AI strategy (plus a prompt to test yours).

  • 🗳️ Should AI rules follow tech borders?

Let’s dive in. No floaties needed…

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The Laboratory

What is Europe’s AI plan for digital freedom?

Ursula von der Leyen at the plenary session at the AI Action Summit. Photo Credit Getty Images.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Europe was the center of global trade, thanks to the early industrialization of Britain, France, Portugal, Germany, and Italy. However, after the 1940s, the balance of power shifted to the United States due to the World Wars and the need for continued military supplies. Since then, the U.S. has stood at the heart of industrial and technological innovation, establishing itself as the center of global trade and commerce.

Today, some of the biggest companies that shape commerce around the globe are based in the U.S., and Silicon Valley leads in technological advancements. This shift has made Europe depend on the U.S. for its military and technological needs. However, the European Union (EU), which represents many of the countries in the area, is now moving to reduce its dependence on the U.S. and reclaim its digital sovereignty.

The EU is taking steps in this direction, the most recent of which was when it announced a 1-billion-euro ($1.1 billion) plan to ramp up the use of AI in key industries. The announcement followed the unveiling of an action plan in April, which aimed to reduce the regulatory burden and costs for startups within the bloc.

EU builds on older plans for AI sovereignty

Unlike the past, this plan goes beyond funding to ease compliance costs for companies looking to implement, rather than develop, AI models. The EU was among the first to implement a comprehensive AI law, which can drastically raise compliance costs for startups.

The initiative aims to make Europe a global hub for responsible AI innovation. “I want the future of AI to be made in Europe,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said during the unveiling of the plan.

Calling for an ‘AI-first’ mindset across sectors such as healthcare, energy, mobility, and manufacturing, the plan prioritizes industries including pharmaceuticals, agri-food, defense, communications, and culture. It also proposes measures like AI-powered screening centers in healthcare and the development of agentic AI for manufacturing and climate applications.

Funding will reportedly be drawn from Horizon Europe and the Digital Europe program. The Commission is also encouraging member states and private investors to provide matching contributions.

The Horizon Europe is a program to fund research and innovation for 2021–2027, with a budget of about €95.5 billion. It aims to strengthen Europe’s scientific and technological capacity, support industrial competitiveness, and tackle global challenges.

Meanwhile, the Digital Europe program is designed to complement Horizon Europe by focusing not on research, but on the deployment and adoption of digital technologies across industries and public services. With a budget of around €8.1 billion for 2021–2027, it invests in five key areas: supercomputing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, advanced digital skills, and the wider use of digital technologies across sectors.

The goal is to bridge the gap between technological research and real-world implementation, helping businesses, especially small and medium businesses, build digital capacity and resilience.

The program also supports European Digital Innovation Hubs, which will serve as regional one-stop shops to help companies and public administrations embrace digital transformation.

The Commission’s pitch is blunt: it wants AI made in Europe and used across critical sectors, and it’s bundling this with its earlier ‘AI Continent’ plan and a wave of public consultations. The EU’s push for sovereignty in AI is not unrivaled. Rather, they are part of a global push for technological independence.

AI sovereignty’s global appeal

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is working to make Riyadh into a global AI hub. Photo Credit: Balkis Press/ABACA/Shutterstock.

On the global front, nations and blocs are increasingly treating AI not as an optional tool but as a strategic asset whose control, location, and governance must lie within their borders or sphere of influence.

Countries like Japan, Canada, the Middle East, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia are often cited as early leaders in the push for digital independence. Enterprises there are among the highest in the world to declare deep commitment to AI/data sovereignty, backed by national strategies and large data center investments.

Even industry leaders, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, have advocated the need for countries to claim ownership over data and the intelligence it produces. While for corporations, the pitch for sovereign AI means greater demand for processing power, for countries, the ability to have agency over AI models could spell the difference between independence and reliance on foreign corporations for access.

Part of the rationale behind this push is larger concerns about who owns data, where it resides, and who builds, trains, hosts, governs, and controls the models and infrastructure.

Additionally, countries fear dependency on U.S. or Chinese AI platforms that might embed vulnerabilities, exfiltrate data, or stay beyond the regulatory purview of nation-states. As such, controlling AI infrastructure becomes as much a matter of national security as it is industrial policy.

According to The Atlantic Council, the goals countries are pursuing are varied and wide-reaching. While some center on preserving values or culture, others focus on the privacy and protection of citizens’ data, economic growth, and national security. Some are also concerned about the current global governance vacuum, where, in the absence of global frameworks, AI companies must be held accountable.

For the EU, having a domestic AI stack means local firms aren’t forever forced to rent from global tech giants, and governments believe they can capture more value downstream rather than let innovation and profits bleed outward.

The opportunity

The EU’s pitch for AI sovereignty is blunt: it wants AI “made in Europe” and used across critical sectors. Photo Credit: Business Reporter.

The EU’s €1 billion Apply AI plan isn’t about funding research papers; it’s a nudge for companies to translate AI potential into productivity within Europe’s borders. For businesses located within the bloc, the smart play is to treat this program as a co-investment platform, not a subsidy. The funding effectively de-risks early adoption by covering part of the capital and operational burden of deploying AI in highly regulated industries such as healthcare, energy, automotive, and manufacturing.

For example, a pharmaceutical company could use this money to test an AI tool that spots possible side effects of new drugs. That kind of project used to be too expensive and too risky because of strict EU data privacy laws. But now, with new EU data spaces that let companies securely use anonymized medical data from across Europe, the same work becomes faster, cheaper, and compliant.

The EuroHPC AI Factories are another major piece of this plan. These are supercomputing centers that give European businesses access to massive computing power without having to rely on U.S. or Chinese cloud giants. Most companies can’t afford the cost of running large AI models themselves, so they can use these shared EU systems instead.

In the post-Second World War century, a divided Europe was dependent on the U.S for its industrial needs. However, it looks like the bloc is in no mood to be left behind in the global race for AI. The EU’s plan gives businesses within its borders a takeoff runway for AI, but they’ll need their own fuel to fly.

The winners will be those who connect all the pieces, computing power, clean and shared data, affordable energy, and legal readiness, into one system that scales safely across Europe. The funding helps, but the real advantage comes from planning and building smarter. If the plan manages to achieve its objective, the future of AI might be decided not by the two but by multiple global AI power centers.

Even if the EU’s policies fail to challenge the technological superiority of the U.S. and China, it will ensure that the continent has alternatives and is not reliant on any one power for its computing needs.

Roko Pro Tip

💡 AI strategy ≠ just access. 

Too many businesses chase AI by plugging into the latest model. But what’s missing? A plan. The EU’s ‘Apply AI’ initiative shows that compute, data infrastructure, energy, legal frameworks, and skills must align.

If your org only has API keys and a strategy to govern, secure, and scale AI—you’re not building a moat, just a sandbox.

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Prompt Of The Day

”Act as a policy advisor for the European Union. Draft a 5-point plan to help member countries implement ethical AI in healthcare and education without relying on U.S. tech infrastructure.” 

Use GPT-4 or Claude 3 Opus for best results.

Bite-Sized Brains

  • Meta grabs AI heavyweight: Thinking Machines Lab co-founder leaves to join Meta, highlighting Big Tech’s ongoing race for top AI talent.

  • Apple kills off Clips: After a quiet run, Apple is officially retiring its quirky short-form video app, Clips.

  • Humanoids need a conductor: Flexxbotics’ CEO argues that humanoid robots are only useful in manufacturing when paired with orchestration platforms.

Tuesday Poll

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