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Jennifer L. Schenker
Innovator Founder and Editor-in-Chief

Creating An AI Continent

Last week the EU unveiled an the "AI Continent" action plan, proclaiming that there is “a unique opportunity for Europe to act swiftly to shape the future of AI.”

It could be Europe’s moment, say tech industry veterans, if it takes the right approach. But some believe it is heading in the wrong direction.

Among other things the action plan aims to:

Strengthen Europe's AI and supercomputing infrastructure with a network of AI factories. Thirteen of these factories are already being deployed around Europe's supercomputers. They aim to support EU AI startups, industry and researchers in developing AI models and applications.
Set up AI Gigafactories. These will be large-scale facilities equipped with approximately 100,000 state-of-the-art AI chips, four times more than current AI factories. They will integrate massive computing power and data centers to train and develop complex AI models. The aim is to stimulate private investment in Gigafactories through InvestAI, which will mobilize €20 billion investment for up to five AI Gigafactories across the Union.
Create data labs to facilitate access to high-quality data
Cultivate AI skills and talents and increase means to attract foreign talent

“This screams of another half-hearted attempt at Europe trying to play catchup via its lethargic and bloated public sector,” veteran European venture capitalist Michael Jackson said in a LinkedIn post. “Even the terminology used - AI factories - shows they're still stuck in industrial era thinking. Europe should be obsessed right now with making itself the best place in the world to start, build, and scale private businesses. This ain't that.”

The plan does not effectively address Europe’s bottlenecks in AI resources, compute and energy, notes Giorgos Verdi, a tech policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, in a policy alert. “To match its aspirations for AI leadership, the EU will need to develop an approach that feeds into its existing strengths—and breaks down artificial silos.

Read on to find out what Verdi and tech industry veterans think Europe needs to do to turn things around and become a global leader in AI and other areas of deep tech.

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- I N T E R V I E W O F T H E W E E K -

Shlomit Wagman, Fintech and AI Expert

Who: Dr. Shlomit Wagman is the Chief Regulatory and Compliance Officer at Rapyd, a global fintech unicorn, and a Senior Fellow at Harvard University. She is a leading expert in fintech, AI, cryptocurrencies, financial crime, and counter-terrorism financing. She previously served as CEO of Israel’s Money Laundering and Terror Financing Prohibition Authority, which was recognized as one of the world’s most effective financial intelligence units.

Topic: The rise of AI agents in finance and what the industry needs to do to prepare

Quote: "This is a chance for larger financial and fintech companies to make sure they stay relevant. Cost reductions and enhanced customer experience will be the first big wins. Traditional banks should embrace these changes as soon as possible and collaborate with other stakeholders to remain innovative and agile."

- S T A R T U P O F T H E W E E K -

beSirius, an Amsterdam-based startup, is a sustainability intelligence platform for companies in the minerals, energy and heavy industry sectors. It replaces Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) form filling and manual reporting with a “sustainability twin” -a structured, real-time profile that gathers all sustainability data into one place. Its customers include multinational steel manufacturer ArcelorMittal, global mining company Freeport-McMoRan and FLSmidth, a mining engineering company.

“We’re not building another ESG reporting tool,” says co-founder and CEO Anastasia Kuskova. “We’re replacing broken workflows - copy-paste answers, ten formats, disconnected systems - with infrastructure that makes sustainability data live, contextual, and usable across the business."

- N U M B E R O F T H E W E E K -

$5.5 Billion

Size of Nvidia’s earnings hit due to the U.S. clamp down on U.S. experts of AI chips to China. The new US chip controls mark the latest salvo in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies. The shortage of domestic chip suppliers in China able to build products to rival those of Nvidia had meant its tech companies were flocking to buy H20s, an AI chip Nvidia purposefully made to accommodate stringent U.S. export controls to China so it could continue selling to the country. But that could change under the new U.S. controls. Since the H20 chip is less powerful than those Nvidia can sell outside China, customers in the rest of the world may be unwilling to buy up stock that cannot be sold there, notes the Financial Times.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Apple's main India suppliers Foxconn and Tata shipped nearly $2 billion worth of iPhones to the United States in March, an all-time high, as the U.S. company airlifted devices to bypass the U.S.’s impending tariffs. The smartphone maker stepped up production in India and chartered cargo flights to ferry 600 tons of iPhones to the United States to ensure sufficient inventory in one of its biggest markets out of concern U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs would push up costs.

Why it matters: Trade tensions introduce uncertainty precisely when tech giants are committing unprecedented capital to AI infrastructure, says market intelligence firm CB Insights. The escalating trade war threatens the supply chains and cost structures underlying one of the most ambitious tech spending cycles in history.

- W H A T T O K N O W -

On April 17 Google lost its second antitrust case in eight months when a court ruled it has an illegal monopoly in parts of the ad industry. Current and former Meta executives, meanwhile, spent the week in court defending the company’s practices in the social-media market as part of a a Federal Trade Commission trial. The cases could force Google and Meta to sell valuable pieces of the formidable empires they have built.

- E V E N T S -

The Innovator's Editor-in-Chief Will Be Moderating At The Following Events:

VivaTech, June 11-14, Paris, France

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