Tech Investor Niel: EU Risks Being ‘Abandoned’ in AI Race

Can Europe create leading artificial intelligence (AI) firms without spending as much as companies in America?

Telecom billionaire Xavier Niel thinks it’s possible, provided that the founders of these AI companies avoid the temptation to cash out too early, the Financial Times (FT) reported Sunday (Nov. 17).

“I think we can create big things with a few hundred million euros,” Niel, one of Europe’s top tech investors, said in an interview with the FT.

“Europe can create competitive AI models today,” added Niel, who has backed AI companies such as Mistral. “But over the next two or three years, [success] depends on the number of initiatives and the ability of those who are the real geniuses — those building the best companies — not to be swallowed up or to sell too quickly.”

The FT noted that Niel’s optimism about the European tech sector is noteworthy, considering that the region trailed the U.S. and China when past tech waves — the internet, social media — took place.

If AI innovation doesn’t take hold in Europe, Niel told the news outlet, the region will be “demoted” in the global economy, relying on American and Chinese tech created without its “values” like privacy and transparency.

“If Europe doesn’t do this right, it will become a very small continent abandoned for a few generations,” he said.

Niel’s opinion, the report said, carries weight, as he has strong ties to Silicon Valley and sits on the boards of companies like KKR and ByteDance.

In other AI news, PYMNTS wrote last week about Google’s recent rollout of its Gemini iPhone app, marking the latest move by tech companies to attract mainstream consumers that want AI tools for day-to-day tasks on their phones.

The increasing competition among consumer AI apps indicates a high-stakes battle for customer attention and wallets as companies scramble to convert casual users into paying subscribers via features such as chatbots, photo editing and writing assistance.

“One good thing about AI-powered apps is their ability to create personalized experiences,” said Dmytro Tymoshenko, the CEO of Noiz, which develops AI-powered summaries of YouTube videos. “AI is able to analyze data at a very high speed, which allows it to, for instance, recommend content based on user preferences quite fast.”