European politicians are under pressure to ease restrictions on artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in an effort to help Europe regain its lost dominance in the global AI race against the United States and China. On Monday, world leaders and tech executives will gather in Paris for a two-day AI summit hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron.
The summit comes at a time of rapid expansion and significant changes in the AI industry, as the rise of China's AI startup DeepSeek poses a competitive threat to software from U.S. tech giants like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Senior managers from Microsoft, Signal, OpenAI, and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, will attend the Paris summit. Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin will also participate in the summit's Tuesday session with national leaders, alongside attendees including U.S. Vice President JD Vance.
It is expected that the summit will explore the potential for enhanced global cooperation in this fast-evolving technological landscape. A French official involved in organizing the event stated, “The AI race is far from over. As long as there are talented individuals, computing power, and startups or teams willing to act quickly, Europe has all these assets.”
Officials from the Élysée Palace noted that the summit aims to demonstrate that "AI doesn't belong solely to the world's two superpowers." They emphasized, “Some players may think the game is already decided, but recent announcements and news from China show otherwise.”
However, Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, director of Digital Europe, an organization representing the tech industry, argued that if Europe does not reduce regulation on AI, it will struggle to catch up with the U.S. and China. Last March, the EU passed landmark legislation known as the Artificial Intelligence Act, which regulates the technology by banning the use of AI to extract data from CCTV footage to create facial recognition databases and imposing stricter oversight on the use of AI in "high-risk" environments such as healthcare, banking, education, and law enforcement.
Bonefeld-Dahl remarked that Europe missed out on the "digital revolution" of the early 2000s and now risks missing the AI opportunity once again. She suggested that the EU should focus on seizing opportunities rather than overemphasizing regulations and called for consideration of ways to eliminate unnecessary burdens for companies.
Prior to the summit, Bonefeld-Dahl recommended that the EU could choose sectors like energy infrastructure or healthcare to serve as pioneers in AI technology, offering generous subsidies or tax incentives to companies using AI in energy grids to attract skilled engineers and "green tech" talent to Europe. She pointed out, “European consumers are overly protected, preventing them from benefiting from the latest technologies, which is not what we want.”
A spokesperson for the European Commission, the EU executive body responsible for proposing laws, stated that the AI competition "is far from over," and Europe is well-positioned to lead the way in "trustworthy AI." He revealed that EU officials are developing plans to establish "AI factories" where European startups can access high-performance computers to test and train new technologies and software.
