Europe is slowing down. Why is the continent losing pace in artificial intelligence?
12.11.2025Europe is not lagging behind - it is just moving more slowly.
Where the US and China build computing hubs in months, the EU launches procedures, commissions, and consultations.
And while Brussels is discussing the "ethical framework", American teams are already training models on the same GPUs that Europe is only preparing tenders for.
2 days or 2 months?
The EU finally has fast-tracks to computing clusters.
The EuroHPC program provides access to supercomputers in Playground mode (up to 2 business days) and Fast Lane mode (up to 4).
This is a real breakthrough for the team, which previously had to wait weeks for permits.
But if we compare it to the USA, over 100 research groups received access through the NAIRR pilot without grants and tenders (the first cohort - 35 projects in 2024, with expansion in 2025).
But while in China the state is investing up to $98 billion in AI computing by 2025 (including $56 billion in state funds), Europe is building procedures to check whether an algorithm is “harmful”…
The problem is not money.
There is funding. There is the AI Factories program (€10 billion, with €600 million for access for science), there is Horizon Europe (€3 billion for AI in 2025), there are member state funds.
But the decision-making culture is slow.
Every idea goes through committees, councils, and public hearings.
And where in the US decisions are made by technical directors, in the EU - by lawyers and regulators.
Critics say: "Bureaucracy eats up speed faster than a server eats up electricity."
This is not a metaphor - according to the European Commission, only 13,5% of European companies use AI, while in the US it is over 70%.
AI wants speed, Europe wants consensus
In 2024–2025, the AI Act came into force — the world's first law regulating artificial intelligence.
He is betting on safety, ethics, and transparency — and that's good.
But at the same time, it adds a layer of formalities that startups call "paper barriers."
The Code of Practice, published in July 2025, was intended to simplify the process, but business complaints about delays continue.
Each additional form is a day when the server is idle.
What can be changed now?
- Simplifying access. The EU could simply subsidize part of the cost of renting GPUs in European data centers — OVHcloud, Hetzner, etc. No competitions, just by application.
- Fewer committees, more practice. Let technical experts test new rules on pilot projects.
- Recognizing time as a resource. If access to computing takes a week, that's a loss of innovation.
We conclude that Europe is not weak - it is simply slow.
Its strength lies in standards and responsibility (InvestAI – €20 billion for Gigafactories in 2025).
Its weakness is in the excess of procedures.
The world is running in "launch and see" mode, while Europe is still filling out forms.
And while she consults among herself, the others experiment...
Maurice K for Newsky
Sources: EuroHPC (09.04.2025), White House / NAIRR (30.10.2024), Xinhua (29.08.2024), European Commission (AI Act + Code of Practice, 2024–2025), Reuters (04.07.2025), Europarl (InvestAI, 2025).
