French President Emmanuel Macron has warned that Europe is falling behind in artificial intelligence (AI) development and must take urgent steps to compete with the United States and China.
In an interview with CNN, Macron acknowledged that Europe is “not in the race today” and stressed the need for a clear AI agenda to bridge the gap.
“We are not in the race today, we are lagging behind,” he said. “We need an AI agenda because we have to bridge the gap with the United States and China on AI.”
He highlighted funding and computing power as major challenges, noting that Europe controls only three to five percent of global computing capacity. Macron emphasized the need to increase this share to at least 20 percent.
His remarks come ahead of the Paris AI Summit, which begins on Monday and will bring together global tech leaders to discuss AI innovation, investment, and regulation.
According to French publication TF1, France is set to announce €109 billion in AI investments at the summit’s opening session. This includes €20 billion from Canadian investment firm Brookfield for AI projects in France, with an additional €50 billion expected from the UAE in the coming years.
Macron’s call for AI advancement follows major developments in the sector, including China’s DeepSeek making significant breakthroughs and the United States launching its $500 billion Stargate project to expand data centers and strengthen AI dominance.
France is also making strides in AI through Mistral AI, a Paris-based startup specializing in open-weight large language models (LLMs), which officially launched on February 6, 2025.
