If there’s anything cowardly in the tech world, chances are Xavier Neal has caught it. The hacker-turned-entrepreneur owns a vast telecom empire, sits on the five-member board of TikTok parent ByteDance, and is a major startup champion, counting French darling Mistral AI among his investments.
The billionaire has kept a close eye on technological advancements throughout his career. But it has also seen Europe lag behind the US and China in innovation.
Europe has produced some promising startups amid the generative AI frenzy, such as Mistral AI and Aleph Alpha. However, the region has a lot to do to keep up with the global AI race.
Neal warns that Europe has a real shot at showing its promise and creativity on the AI front. But if it misses the boat, it may no longer be relevant.
“If Europe doesn’t get it right, it will become a very small continent that will be abandoned for a few generations,” he said. Financial Times In an interview published on Sunday.
What differentiates European AI startups are their “values,” such as privacy and transparency, Neal said. It’s also producing engineering and math-focused talent at its universities, which could give the region an edge — if it moves fast and breaks things, as the saying goes.
“Of course, the world is moving faster now. There are more resources. But there will always be two smart kids in the world, working out of a garage, with a technological vision or a new idea,” Neal said.
The French mogul, who is worth $8.7 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, is at the center of AI development. His optimism in Europe’s AI potential has led him to develop Station F, the world’s largest startup incubator in Paris. He has also invested $300 million in a non-profit AI research lab with Eric Schmidt and Rudolf Saade.
Still, he worries that if Europe fails to ride the AI wave, it will remain “the best place in the world for museums,” Neal said. Wired In September he likened the current AI moment to when search engines became mainstream. Today they are largely run by US players, such as Google and Microsoft Bing.
“If you want to build a search engine from scratch, you can’t win because you weren’t there 25 years ago,” he said.
Other experts have also expressed concern that Europe is lagging behind and how this could affect the region’s security and defense prospects vis-à-vis the rest of the world.
What Neil calls one of Europe’s strengths has also led to the perception that it regulates AI too tightly and pushes competitors out of its market. The European Union passed its first draft of AI rules, which some see as important while others see it as restrictive.
In an in-depth report on Europe’s competitiveness, former ECB president Mario Draghi highlighted that new opportunities could open up if AI is deployed correctly.
Meanwhile, Christian Klein, CEO of German tech giant SAP, said overregulation risks leaving Europe’s startups behind. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Spotify’s Daniel Eck issued an open letter in September echoing similar concerns, urging Europe to overhaul its “fragmented and inconsistent” regulations on AI. Fix it.
Companies on the Fortune 500 Europe list, which ranks the region’s largest companies by revenue, are slowly but surely integrating AI into advanced applications. Ultimately, Europe’s strategy for dealing with the challenges may determine whether it is a winner or a loser.
“Simply put, developing, launching, or simply using technology is more difficult in Europe than anywhere else in the world. To stay in the global race, the EU needs a new approach: enabling innovation while enabling innovation.” Mitigating technology risks,” said Matt Burton, EMEA president of Google. good luck last month
