According to Politician News Network's report on October 22nd, top European tech entrepreneurs have publicly opposed the idea put forward by European leaders to withdraw from the competition in developing cutting-edge artificial intelligence models.
Last week, some important figures, including the President of the European Commission, Fréderic de Launay, and founders of well-known technology companies, believed that Europe should abandon its efforts to catch up with leading American companies in the development of advanced artificial intelligence models, and instead focus on creating value through artificial intelligence applications.
German artificial intelligence translation company DeepL’s CEO, Yarrek Kutillovski, said in an interview: “We need our own models, and we also need to master the entire value chain of artificial intelligence. We must also acquire the technology and the value that lies within artificial intelligence itself… Otherwise, we will hand over a significant portion of value creation opportunities to others.”
This divergence highlights the difficulty that Europe faces in finding its own position in the global artificial intelligence competition. In terms of developing the most complex and advanced artificial intelligence models, Europe lags behind the United States and China. Since these models can exploit software vulnerabilities, they also raise concerns regarding security.
However, if the EU wants to develop competitive autonomous models, it must find ways to raise funds to support the massive computing power required for training and running these models.
In recent weeks, there has been disagreement between senior executives and officials of leading European technology companies. Some believe that it is no longer meaningful to continue trying to catch up with the United States and China; others argue that if Europe gives up on developing its own artificial intelligence models, it will once again be dependent on foreign technologies.
French artificial intelligence giant Mistral's CEO, Arthur Menš, wrote a widely circulated article titled "Either Build Autonomously or Surrender." In the article, he warned that abandoning advanced artificial intelligence research would ultimately lead to Europe losing its only remaining position in the world.
Both Menz and Kuttilovski tried to use a language that Brussels policymakers could understand, arguing against abandoning research in cutting-edge artificial intelligence. They warned that doing so could lead Europe to become dependent on foreign technologies in new areas and might result in a new type of trade deficit for Europe with the United States.
"Men Shi Zhou Wu Zai Europe Tech Network's One-Class Live Interview Program Indicated, If Europe Only Developed Applications Based on Foreign Models, The End Result Would Be Just "The Rest of the Stuff" Left Behind by Others, Facing Severe Trade Balance Shortfalls."
Swedish artificial intelligence legal service platform Legora’s CEO, Max Junestland, said in an interview that attempting to establish a ‘competitive cutting-edge artificial intelligence laboratory’ seems very unrealistic at present. His remarks have intensified the debate surrounding this issue.
Yunestrand stated that European public and private sectors should invest resources in researching how to 'create value using this technology, rather than focusing on trying to keep up.'
His views coincide with those of Federica Mogherini. In a statement on the state of the EU issued in mid-September, Mogherini stated that Europeans do not have to ‘become part of the party that develops cutting-edge technologies, but can also become part of the party that gains the greatest benefits from them’.
However, companies engaged in cutting-edge artificial intelligence research have raised objections to this claim. The company Mistral, which was recently valued at over 2.1 billion euros, has become the leader of the opposition camp. A spokesperson for the company stated that abandoning cutting-edge artificial intelligence research would be a “strategic mistake”.
Kuttilovski specifically mentioned the field of software engineering. He pointed out that currently, some of the expenses incurred by companies in this area have shifted from paying engineers’ salaries to purchasing artificial intelligence model services. He believes that if Europe does not have its own artificial intelligence models, part of the economic value will flow to the United States.
Europe is currently implementing several programs to ensure that it remains competitive in the field of artificial intelligence at the forefront.
At the end of July, the European Commission launched a project costing 30 billion euros, aiming to build seven artificial intelligence computing centers. A consortium of European companies led by the Italian AI company Domyn is currently training a cutting-edge artificial intelligence model. This model will be made available to all of Europe in the future and will support all official languages of the European Union.
