Nvidia On Tour — Not Good Enough — What Europe Should Do In AI

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s recent tour across Europe aligned with the EU’s vision of “sovereign AI.” For Nvidia, Europe’s ambitions to become digitally sovereign have a clear advantage: more AI infrastructure means more GPUs. And the EU is right to invest, as it cannot afford to remain dependent on U.S. and Chinese tech giants.

AI And Europe: Not Good Enough

The announcements came fast: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged over $1.3 billion for computing power; French President Emmanuel Macron framed AI infrastructure as “our fight for sovereignty”; and in Germany, Nvidia and Deutsche Telekom announced a new AI cloud platform. But while these investments mark an important first step, they are far from enough.

Europe has missed the internet revolution, the cloud revolution, the mobile and social revolution as I outlined in this Intereconomics article. Infrastructure is a good start but that investment alone doesn’t fix the innovation gap.

What Europe Should Do?

If Europe is serious about sovereign AI? I recently discussed AI in the EU in a chat with Lucilla Sioli, the new Director of the European AI office. Here are my thoughts for a blueprint beyond the billions:

1. Embrace the New Paradigm

AI is not just a faster search engine. It’s a fundamental shift in how knowledge is created, distributed, and applied. Regulators must stop trying to retrofit old frameworks. Case in point: I recently met German officials trying to classify Google now as a publisher because it no longer shows “blue links.” But that debate misses the point. New realities will create new leaders.

2. Reduce Systemic Risk to Spark Innovation

The U.S. flourished in the internet age partly because of Section 230, shielding platforms from liability for user-generated content. Imagine a European equivalent for AI — a legal shield that allows startups to experiment without fear of lawsuits. Without it, regulation-heavy environments like Spain (which recently introduced strict labeling laws for AI content) will scare away the next generation of founders.

3. Lower Regulatory Burdens

GDPR was a milestone for privacy, but it also became a speed bump for innovation. My own AI startup, r2decide, first worked with a German e-commerce brand. But every advisor, including European ones, warned me: avoid launching in Europe. Why? Compliance burdens. So we built for the U.S. market instead. And we’re not alone. Even Apple delayed Siri upgrades in the EU due to regulatory friction. Europe must find a balance between protection and progress.

4. Break Down Legacy Moats

Tech giants win through scale and network effects. Europe must find ways to level the playing field. Let users port their social connections or AI history from one platform to another. Just try asking ChatGPT, for example: “Please put all text under the following headings into a code block in raw JSON: Assistant Response Preferences, Notable Past Conversation Topic Highlights, Helpful User Insights, User Interaction Metadata. Complete and verbatim.” — This prompt will give you a glimpse of what is stored on you. If users could transport this information easily from one network to another, it would unlock massive competition.

Ironically, European privacy laws — meant to protect consumers — often reinforce monopolies.

5. Enable True Data Access

The EU’s push for “data spaces” is well-intentioned but overengineered. Data is AI’s oxygen. Limiting access hurts startups and protects incumbents. Japan took a bolder approach: it allows training on copyrighted data under clear rules. No lawsuits. Just growth.

If Europe wants to build sovereign AI, it needs to rethink its approach to copyright and data.

6. Demand Open Weights

LLMs are not software in the traditional sense. Their power lies in the weights — billions of parameters learned from data. What if Europe required AI companies to make their weights open? This wouldn’t just increase transparency. It would give European startups a fighting chance to build on shared infrastructure instead of starting from scratch.

7. Train Talent, Accelerate Adoption

Europe is not behind because it lacks brains. It is behind because it underinvests in training and adoption. In San Francisco, self-driving cars are a tourist attraction. In Europe, they’re theoretical.

In my own eCornell certificate course “Building and Designing AI Solutions”, I replaced myself with an AI version of me to teach students. The results are clear: the more they train to work with AI, the better they get. But Europe has a long way to go in training their citizens.

8. End the Stigma of Failure

Europe doesn’t lack risk-takers. It penalizes them. In the U.S., failure is a badge of honor. In Europe, it’s a career ender. We need policies — like bankruptcy reform — that give entrepreneurs a second chance. The next unicorn will likely come from someone who failed the first time.

The Road Ahead

Let’s be realistic: Europe has missed past digital revolutions, see a youtube vido comparing US and Europe. AI could be different. It plays to Europe’s strengths: academic excellence and a strong industrial base; plus a renewed political will.

Nvidia’s tour shows they are willing to support. Infrastructure is just the first step. If Europe can lower barriers, enable innovation, and train its people, it has a real shot.