European Union is losing the global AI race: Reports

 
Former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson famously said that “a week is a long time in politics.” He further said that the old order is dead.

At the same time the European Union (EU) is losing the global Artificial Intelligence race on nearly every key metric except regulation. While China and the United States invest billions in infrastructure, talent, startups, labs, and research, Europe remains focused on rules.

Clark Parsons, leader of the European Startup Network, said “The EU should stop patting itself on the back for being the world's regulator in technology. Some elements of the Digital Markets Act were designed to promote competition. I like those, but in general we have spent far too long focusing on regulating instead of every day waking up and saying what can we do to make Europe the most competitive place on the planet, the most prosperous place on the planet.”

US President Donald Trump’s recent remarks about owning Greenland, European weakness and his scorn about NATO members’ contributions in Afghanistan have laid bare the stark reality that the dead old order can’t be resurrected.

No one captured the mood better than Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, whose speech at the World Economic Forum at Davos on Wednesday infuriated US President Donald Trump.

“We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,” Carney said – issuing a rallying call to what he called middle powers.  

There are signs of a realization in the West now that candid resistance is a better approach than quiet accommodation. Besides the outrage over Trump’s remarks on Afghanistan, the Europeans were similarly aghast, and said so, by Trump’s threat that eight European nations would be punished with tariffs for supporting the current state of Greenland as part of Denmark.

Europe threatened retaliatory tariffs. The European Parliament responded by putting the EU-US trade deal on ice. The United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy all rejected invitations to join Trump’s Board of Peace, not wishing to be subordinate to him as the chairman.

“I obviously have concerns about Putin being on a Board of Peace,” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, after Trump declared the Russian leader had agreed to join. Moscow has not confirmed that.

By Wednesday, Trump had withdrawn the threat of tariffs and moderated his rhetoric about a military takeover of Greenland. “We were successful in withstanding, being non-escalatory, but also by standing firm,” said Ursula Von Der Leyen, President of the European Commission.

Meanwhile, the Danish and Greenlandic Prime Ministers are on a tour of European capitals to shore up support ahead of pending negotiations with the Trump administration on Greenland’s future.