The Race to Build the DeepSeek of Europe Is On
In this context, Europe’s dependence on American-made AI is starting to look more and more like a liability. In a worst-case scenario, although experts consider this possibility remote, the United States could choose to deny access to AI services and crucial digital infrastructure. More likely, the Trump administration could use Europe’s dependence as leverage as the two sides continue to fine-tune a trade deal. “This dependence is a handicap in any negotiation – and we will negotiate more and more with the United States,” says Taddeo.
The European Commission, the White House and the UK Department of Science, Innovation and Technology did not respond to requests for comment.
To guard against these risks, European countries have attempted to offshore AI production, through funding programs, targeted deregulation and partnerships with academic institutions. Some efforts have focused on creating large, competitive language models for native European languages, such as Apertus and GPT-NL.
As long as ChatGPT or Claude continue to outperform chatbots made in Europe, America’s lead in AI will only grow. “These areas are very often the win-win type. When you have a really good platform, everyone goes there,” says Nejdl. “Not being able to produce cutting-edge technology in this area means you won’t catch up. You’ll always just feed the bigger players with your input, so they’ll get even better and you’ll fall further behind.”
Watch out for the gap
It is unclear how far the UK or EU intend to go in favor of ‘digital sovereignty’, lobbyists say. Does sovereignty require complete self-sufficiency throughout the sprawling AI supply chain, or only enhanced capability in a narrow set of disciplines? Does it require the exclusion of US-based providers, or only the availability of domestic alternatives? “It’s pretty vague,” says Boniface de Champris, senior policy director for the Computer & Communications Industry Association, an organization of technology companies. “At this point it appears to be more of a narrative. »
There is also no general agreement on the political levers to pull to create the conditions allowing Europe to become self-sufficient. Some European suppliers are arguing for a strategy where European companies would be forced, or at least incentivized, to buy from local AI companies – an approach similar to China’s announced approach to its domestic processor market. Unlike grants and subsidies, such an approach would help boost demand, says Ying Cao, CTO of Magics Technologies, a Belgium-based company developing AI-specific processors for use in space. “It’s more important than just access to capital,” Cao says. “The most important thing is that you can sell your products. » But those who advocate open markets and deregulation say that trying to exclude U.S.-based AI companies risks putting domestic companies at a disadvantage compared to their global counterparts, left to choose which AI products are best for them. “From our point of view, sovereignty means having a choice,” explains de Champris.
But for all the disagreements over policy details, there is a broad belief that closing the performance gap with U.S. leaders remains entirely possible, even for labs with limited budgets and resources, as DeepSeek has illustrated. “If I ever thought we wouldn’t catch up, I wouldn’t [try]”, says Nejdl. SOOFI, the open source model development project in which Nejdl is involved, intends to release a general-purpose competitive language model with around 100 billion parameters over the next year.
“Progress in this area will no longer depend largely on larger GPU clusters,” says Nejdl. “We will be the European DeepSeek.”
