Europe’s AI progress ‘insufficient’ to compete with US and China, French report says

The European Union’s regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) is “insufficient” to compete with the progress of the US and China in harnessing the technology, lawmakers in France have said.

In a new report, France’s Parliamentary Office for Scientific and Technological Assessment (OPECST), an independent body within parliament, highlighted how France and other European countries compare on AI. 

“The challenge is one of digital sovereignty, to avoid becoming a mere digital colony,” Corinne Narassiguin, a Senator from the Socialist Party and one of three rapporteurs of the report, said at a press conference.

“The European Union is currently focusing on regulating AI, but this is still insufficient in the face of the size and progress of the American and Chinese powers,” she added. 

“Digital sovereignty against the domination of the US calls for the development of powerful French and European players”.

The report comes ahead of an AI action summit in France in February 2025 that aims to gather as many “AI ecosystem stakeholders as possible from all backgrounds,” according to the event page.

The lawmakers noted in the report that “no power is currently in a position to control the entire value chain on its domestic market alone,” which would give them “real sovereignty in the field of AI”.

Two-thirds of computer chips in the US, for instance, come from Taiwan, it said.

However, European companies are absent in some parts of the supply chain such as the manufacturing of graphics processing units or semiconductors. 

The report also noted there is a brain drain from European countries in favour of US companies. 

Though some notable European players exist like the France-based AI company Mistral, the US “currently is the hegemonic power