Draghi in the FT: Europe can have AI without oligarchs

In an article in the Financial Times, Mario Draghi addressed the “difficult choices” facing Europe regarding artificial intelligence, which he described as the “most promising lever” for reviving European growth, but also as a technology that risks coming into conflict with the continent’s sovereignty if Europe fails to control at least part of the value chain.

According to the former ECB president, Europe must return to growth in order to finance its social model, meet new demands and preserve its sovereignty – three areas on which “AI has a simultaneous impact”. The productivity gap between the eurozone and the United States has widened from 9 dollars per hour in 2018 to 21 in 2025, whilst the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence could, according to the ECB’s scenarios, add between 0.3 and 0.4 percentage points per year to total factor productivity growth.

The problem is that Europe controls only a tiny fraction of the supply chain. Its laboratories cannot compete financially with their American and Chinese counterparts, whilst the production of advanced chips is lagging behind. According to Draghi, “data is the only sector in which Europe can still be self-sufficient” and also the one with “the greatest potential to generate growth”. By 2030, according to the European Commission, the data economy could exceed 800 billion euros, accounting for over 5 per cent of GDP.

However, to make the most of this resource, greater computing power and more control over data storage and processing are required. Today, the EU accounts for less than 5 per cent of the world’s computing power dedicated to AI, compared with 75 per cent in the United States.

One of the main obstacles is the fragmentation of demand, spread across millions of companies and unable to offer investors sufficient guarantees. Draghi therefore proposes pooling the commitments of large European companies through multi-year contracts. An example of this is the agreement between companies such as ASML, Capgemini and Amadeus to purchase Mistral’s European Compute Units, which are intended to guarantee one gigawatt of capacity by 2030.

The aim is to create a ‘virtuous circle’ in which greater adoption of AI generates demand, funds new European capacity and enables the use of data on infrastructure under European control. However, to prevent the emergence of a new technological oligarchy, aggregate demand should favour multiple suppliers and greater competition. Hence Draghi’s conclusion: “Europe must not have to choose between growth, sovereignty and its values” and can therefore “have AI without oligarchs”.