Paris spent a day worried a Silicon Valley company might buy its AI champion, and Mistral denied it. Brussels' own cyber agency, meanwhile, had already run a security scan on EU code through an American model, and nobody remarked on it. Both are the same dependency, seen from two different heights.
A report backed by Margrethe Vestager wants Europe to commit 100 billion euros to AI computing capacity or risk permanent foreign dependence. The funding that actually closed today ranged from a 350,000 euro data platform to a 300 million euro satellite manufacturer, useful money, none of it aimed at the specific gap the report describes. A London firm's warning about an AI power shortfall suggests the price tag understates the problem.
Xi Jinping pitched an open-source AI coalition to BRICS that pointedly leaves the EU out, as Brussels' AI Act moves from paper to active fines. Sam Altman's OpenAI, meanwhile, wants the antitrust room to slow AI development that Europe closed off back in 2004.