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Europe has two years to avoid dependence on U.S. AI infrastructure giants, Mistral CEO says.
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Artificial intelligence dominance will depend on control of chips, energy and computing power, Arthur Mensch warns.
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Mensch told French lawmakers that Europe risks becoming a “vassal state” for artificial intelligence.
It’s been two years.
Arthur Mensch, CEO of French artificial intelligence startup Mistral, said there is a narrow window in which Europe must build its own artificial intelligence infrastructure before relying permanently on U.S. tech giants.
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“This will be decided in the next two years,” Mensch told a hearing on digital sovereignty and artificial intelligence in France’s National Assembly on Tuesday (translated by Business Insider).
Mistral is one of the best-funded artificial intelligence startups in Europe and a challenger to OpenAI. The 33-year-old co-founder said the continent risks losing control not only of its AI models, but also the energy and computing infrastructure that powers them.
“Once the supply is monopolized by corporate America, suddenly we no longer have the supply and we can no longer convert electrons into tokens,” Mensch said, referring to the process of converting computing power into output generated by artificial intelligence.
He even said that if Europe cannot develop its own artificial intelligence industry and continues to import digital services from the United States, it may eventually become a “vassal state.”
European sovereignty push
Mensch, who has repeatedly asserted sovereignty and European independence from U.S. AI companies as central to Mistral’s open source strategy, recently said governments increasingly want them to be able to control AI systems independently of U.S. tech giants.
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The Paris-based startup has continued to emphasize this message in recent announcements, including a partnership with the state-backed French public investment agency Groupe Caisse des Dépôts focused on strengthening Europe’s “digital sovereignty” through generative artificial intelligence and GPU computing infrastructure.
On Tuesday, Mensch warned that the race for artificial intelligence is increasingly a battle for energy, chips and data center capacity.
U.S. tech companies are already moving aggressively to secure these resources, he said, adding that if it moves too slowly, Europe risks falling permanently behind.
“Americans will deploy a trillion dollars next year,” Mensch said. “Whoever controls the chip, whoever controls the electrons, has a lot of energy – whoever controls it is the winner.”
Infrastructure case
Founded in 2023 by former Meta and DeepMind researchers, Mistral has become one of Europe’s flagship artificial intelligence startups, valued at approximately $13.6 billion.
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Mensch said the company aims to build gigawatts of AI computing capacity by 2029, although he said Europe will ultimately need more infrastructure investment.
The executive also criticized Europe’s fragmented regulations and capital markets, saying they make it much more difficult for startups to scale than in the United States.
“If we don’t move fast enough, we will end up in a situation where we have no other choice,” Mensch said.
He added: “In a world where all digital services are imported from the United States, you have no leverage over the United States.”
Read the original article on Business Insider
