Can Europe build its own AI heavyweights to rival the US?

Published 19 June 2026 · tech

With AI dominated by US firms, Europe is pushing for more independence. New partnerships, investments and startups aim to boost the continent's digital sovereignty, but

With AI dominated by US firms, Europe is pushing for more independence. New partnerships, investments and startups aim to boost the continent's digital sovereignty, but challenges around funding and regulation remain. Access to artificial intelligence (AI) models is not only a matter of economic autonomy but also of national security. For any doubters, this was made clear in mid-June when Anthropic announced that, on US government orders, it would deny all foreign users access to its top AI software, citing national security concerns. These AI models — Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 — are considered particularly effective at identifying vulnerabilities in software. Germany, for one, must urgently catch up in artificial intelligence, says German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt. In the current situation, it is essential to help shape technological innovation, he said. Otherwise, "you could very quickly end up among the victims," he added, according to the German news agency dpa. A Franco-German AI response The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) told DW that initial efforts have already been agreed upon. DFKI and its French partner Inria, a public research institute for computer science and automation, are about to sign an agreement to establish a Franco-German AI center. Offices will be set up at the respective locations in Germany and France starting in July 2026, with operational activities beginning by the third quarter of the year, according to DFKI spokesman Andreas Schepers.

Tech giant OpenAI heads for Wall Street To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video One French player has already entered the race: Mistral AI, a French software company focused on artificial intelligence and a European leader in large language models. By European standards, Mistral is a heavyweight. In September 2025, the company announced it had secured investments of around €1.7 billion ($2 billion at the time), valuing the company at nearly €12 billion. "This investment fuels our scientific research to keep pushing the frontier of AI," the company wrote on its blog. Earlier, Dutch company ASML, the world's largest supplier of the advanced machines used to print tiny circuits onto computer chips for the semiconductor industry, had acquired an 11% stake in Mistral, according to numerous reports. Who is looking after European autonomy? "Europe must develop its own powerful AI offerings to remain effective and competitive," said Bernhard Rohleder, head of Bitkom, a German association representing more than 2,200 companies in the digital industry. "A country is digitally sovereign if it possesses substantial capabilities in key technologies and can independently decide from which countries to source those technologies it does not develop itself," he told DW. Do large-scale AIs make society's problems worse? To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The German government appears to share this view and implemented a European AI regulation in February.