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 of artificial intelligence”. 

Nevertheless, the parliamentarians also said the EU could be seen as providing "greater confidence" to models due to its AI regulation.

Recommendations ahead of the AI summit

The office plans to present its conclusions and recommendations to the French government, which is currently embroiled in a political crisis.

The country is set to hold a summit in three months following the AI Safety Summit held last year in the UK. The event will focus on building an AI sector that is in the public’s interest, according to the Elysée.

Ahead of the event, the French parliamentary group put forth several recommendations on AI, one of which is to bring the multiple global governance projects under a single organisation.

The authors suggest placing them under the umbrella of the United Nations.

“The importance and specificity (of AI) call for the creation of a new specialised institution as part of the (UN) system, whose purview would extend from international coordination of AI regulation to fighting the global digital divide,” the report says. 

Another recommendation at the international level is to launch a European AI project that includes France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain.

This idea isn’t new and has been considered since 2017, the authors said, but has not been practically implemented.