Beating AI defeatism
Ahead of the informal European leaders’ summit on AI this Friday, Renew Europe MEPs visited JUPITER, one of Europe’s most powerful supercomputers, in Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany. The visit comes as the EU’s call for AI gigafactories is open, with the first bids due by the end of the year.
The message Renew Europe MEPs heard from researchers at the site was simple: don’t give up the AI race!
João Cotrim de Figueiredo (Iniciativa Liberal, Portugal) said: “It’s hard not to be pessimistic about Europe and AI. Europe has only 5% of the world’s AI computing capacity. These figures should be a wake up call. America 78% and China 11%. Nobody calls the shots with a 5% market share. But what I heard today gave me optimism. There is room for new markets and for European leadership. But for that, European industries must aggregate demand and tell European tech designers what they need so we can produce it at home. We have the talent for it, what we lack is the scale. Only massive investment will help us stay in the race.
João Cotrim De FigueiredoRenew Europe MEP, Portugal, Iniciativa Liberal
“Europe can also bounce back if politicians are brave enough to explain the trade-offs to voters and if tech companies make the benefits of AI clearer and put people at the centre. Finally, the EU must keep taking a long, hard look at the laws it has passed and simplify them further. We cannot regulate our way up the AI ladder.”
The JUPITER site is publicly funded and focuses on fundamental research with a positive societal impact. Researchers there complained about the bureaucracy.
Bart Groothuis (VVD, the Netherlands), who also took part in the visit, said: “When both the private sector and publicly funded researchers complain about red tape, it is our job to listen. We’re shooting ourselves in the foot if rules meant to protect citizens end up holding European developers and researchers back. EU data protection laws are well-intentioned and useful, but they must be amended to work for our science, our research and our future prosperity. The digital omnibus is the chance to get this right, and the co-legislators must deliver.”
Bart GroothuisRenew Europe MEP, Netherlands, Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie
Researchers on site told our MEPs that two companies from two different member states had wanted to use JUPITER’s computing power to train an AI model that could have rivalled an American one. But because JUPITER is publicly funded, state aid rules prevented it, and Europe lost another chance. The AI gigafactories are meant to be private-led. They must be built quickly and designed so that this problem does not arise.