Europe says it will ease regulations on artificial intelligence at a key AI summit in Paris on Feb. 11, 2025, that brought together the U.S. and other global tech giants and politicians. But some experts see bigger challenges stalling the bloc’s ambitions to be an AI heavyweight, from the need to pool resources to attracting more investment and talent.
After U.S. President Donald Trump’s massive Stargate investment project and China’s DeepSeek startup, Europe wants to get a share of the artificial intelligence pie. Among other announcements at the Paris summit, co-host French President Emmanuel Macron outlined plans for $113 billion in private AI investment.
The two-day summit underscored tensions between fears of too much AI regulation and not enough.
“At this moment, we face the extraordinary prospect of a new Industrial Revolution, one on par with the steam engine or Bessemer steel,” U.S. Vice President JD Vance told summit attendees Tuesday. “But it will never come to pass if overregulation deters innovators from taking the risks necessary to advance the ball.”
Macron, who’s been nicknamed France’s startup president, outlined caveats. He said advancing international governance of AI will enable the consolidation of trust, acceleration and innovation in order to set the rules for AI, which are necessary to move forward.
Currently, Europe’s AI industry lags behind those of the U.S. and China. But the right policies, some experts believe, can help close the gap.
“Europe really has pretty much everything else it needs to lead in AI or other complex technologies,” said Pierre Alexandre Balland, chief data scientist at the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels. “The talent is absolutely incredible. … [T]he scale of the European economy is also huge … the education system. Essentially, we see a wind of change in the EU really led by France, and Emmanuel Macron is very much behind that.”
Beyond easing EU regulations, Balland sees bigger challenges — such as pooling European research and other resources, calling for investing pension funds to finance AI’s growth, and concentrating on a single AI hub in Europe.
“Paris is absolutely by far the leading AI ecosystem in Europe,” he said.
Alicia Garcia-Herrero, senior fellow at Brussels-based Bruegel policy institute, agreed France is leading the way. She believes Europe should narrow its goals — focusing on areas like AI applications for robotics.
“Can the AI make the EU more competitive? No doubt,” Garcia-Herrero said. “But I think there’s many other issues that need to be solved beyond AI. The most important one is having a single market.”
Paris summit organizers have also pushed for commitments on making AI more ethical, accessible and environmentally sustainable.
