THE Summit on action for artificial intelligence confirmed what many observers anticipated: the United States largely dominate the race for AIChina advances at its own pace with a centralized approach, and Europe, although presents, still struggles to structure a coherent response to these powers. Behind the discourse and the financial commitments announced, the tensions are clearly emerging, and the risk of seeing Europe remain a simple captive market for innovations from elsewhere is becoming more and more tangible.
To talk about it we receive this week in the Frenchweb club in partnership with Canalchat, Yann Lechelle, CEO of probabl A startup which presents itself as “with an industrial and digital sovereignty mission” and Spinoff de l’Inria.
American hegemony, an undisputed reality
The Summit for Action on AI revealed a Hyper-concentration of IA resources and innovations in the United States. OPENAI, Google Deepmind, Anthropic and Nvidia shape the entire sector, benefiting from a Unprecedented financial flow and a massive adoption of their solutions around the world. $ 109 billion have been announced to further accelerate their advance, while Europe, with its 200 billion mentionedremains hesitant on the distribution and use of these funds.
The American model is based on a total integration of innovations into a structured ecosystem. IA startups are funded, absorbed by technological giants, then integrated into cloud offers and disseminated worldwide in record time. This dynamism, combined with a considerable financial strike force, gives the United States a difficult advance to catch up. Europe, on the other hand, is lost between its regulatory arbitrations and its inability to structure a competitive industry at the height of the challenges posed by this new technological era.
Europe between regulation and lack of industrial vision
Europe, faithful to its tradition, seeks above all to regulate AI even before having structured a competitive market. L’AI Actby imposing strict rules on the transparency of models, aims to supervise the potential drifts of generative artificial intelligence, particularly in terms of deepfakes and manipulation of content. If the intention is laudable, the implementation of such constraints could even more slow the development of European IA industry.
The question of technological sovereignty arises with particular acuity. Europe continues to massively depend on American infrastructurewhether it is Nvidia chips, AWS and Azure Cloud services or the proprietary solutions of GAFAM. Announce colossal investments without having a controlled value chainfrom the manufacture of components to the structuring of software alternatives, risk of Take advantage of the actors already dominant mainly.
For Yann Lechelle, the regulation alone will not be enough to create a credible alternative. Europe must go further and deploy a real industrial strategyby massively supporting its own technological actors. Currently, large European companies continue to favor American solutionsrelegating local innovations to a minor role.
Massive investments, illusory independence?
Funding announcements, however spectacular they may be, do not guarantee technological independence. The problem lies in the real use of these funds. If the objective is simply to build more data centers without control over the Fleets, software and cloud infrastructureSO Europe will only strengthen the dominant position of American giants.
The question of sovereignty also arises in the field of technological purchases. Currently, Only 1 % of IT expenses of large French companies are allocated to local solutions. A derisory figure which illustrates the structural delay of the continent. Less than a strong reorientation of investments towards European companies, The amounts injected into AI will only produce a marginal effect on the emergence of a competitive industry.
The stake is therefore clear: Financing innovation is not enough, it is still necessary to create an internal market capable of absorbing and enhancing these technologies. Europe can no longer afford to finance infrastructure intended to be operated by foreign companies.
Towards technological protectionism?
Faced with the American firepower and the Chinese centralized model, for Yann Lechelle, Europe must assume a more offensive regulation. The idea of a “Buy European Act”encouraging public and private actors to favor local technologies, could constitute an effective lever. Still it would be necessary to be accompanied bya transformation of the purchasing practices of large European companieswhich remain largely dependent on foreign solutions.
Imposing increased transparency on AI model suppliers would also be a means of Restore a form of balance. Today, the GAFAMs dominate thanks to models of which Biases and training data remain opaque. A European requirement in matters ofopen source and open standards could force these actors to greater transparency and Reduce their artificial competitive advantage.
Europe, long attached to a liberal vision of competition, must now ask the question of a intelligent protectionismunder penalty of become a simple consumer market for innovations developed elsewhere.
What place for France and its IA startups?
If American giants capture most of funding and talents, some French initiatives seek to reverse the trend. Mistral aialthough funded mainly by foreign funds, represents an attempt to structure a competing offer in Openai. Likelyled by Yann Lechelle, adopts another approach by focusing on open source for offer a European alternative in machine learning.
Scikit-Learn, fundamental active in the IA ecosystem, was massively adopted worldwidebut has never been valued as an economic lever for European sovereignty. Likely aims to aims to Structure a hybrid model, where open source remains an accessible tool, but with services and commercial recovery allowing to build a solid economic model.
If these solutions exist, they still remain minority in front of digital giants. Europe must now make clear strategic choices and stop hesitating between a purely regulatory approach and a strong industrial ambition.
A summit revealing a strategic turning point
The AI summit has acted several realities: The United States dominates, China follows its own trajectory, and Europe still hesitates on its positioning. Faced with this situation, the choice is simple: continue to regulate without structuring a competitive market, or adopt an offensive industrial policy to avoid total dependence on foreign actors.
Yann Lechelle underlines the urgency of daring strategic decisions. Without a clear commitment to Create an AI internal marketEurope will continue to be spectator of a new technological era.
