{"id":624691,"date":"2026-09-14T20:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T20:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/624691\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T20:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T20:24:09","slug":"europe-must-build-own-ai-or-risk-getting-cut-off-by-us-or-china-says-ecbs-lagarde-ai-artificial-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/624691\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe must build own AI or risk getting cut off by US or China, says ECB\u2019s Lagarde | AI (artificial intelligence)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Europe must develop its own AI technology and build more datacentres in order to nullify the threat of being cut off by the US or China, according to the president of the European Central Bank<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Christine Lagarde said the continent needed AI models \u2013 the technology that powers AI tools such as chatbots \u2013 that were \u201cgood enough\u201d to carry out most tasks and run from domestic datacentres. If Europe invests in its own AI tech, said Lagarde, \u201cthe threat of being cut off loses its force\u201d.<\/p>\n

AI is being built elsewhere, the ECB boss said in a speech in Vienna, with the US producing 59 notable models last year and China 35, while France<\/a> and the UK produced one each. She added that the US hosts 75% of the world\u2019s AI computing capacity \u2013 produced by datacentres \u2013 and Europe just 5%.<\/p>\n

Lagarde said Europe<\/a> faced \u201can awkward choice\u201d. \u201cEither it holds back on adopting, because it cannot protect its data, and forgoes the growth. Or it adopts AI quickly, becomes highly dependent, and risks losing the freedom to organise its economy according to its own values.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cutting Europe off from AI or changing the terms of its access would have a widespread and immediate economic impact, she said.<\/p>\n

Datacentre run by French company OVHcloud in Roubaix \u2013 Lagarde wants Europe to have more domestic capacity. Photograph: Sameer Al-Doumy\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin a few years it will be screening goods at the border, deciding which tax returns are audited, dispatching trains, watching patients on wards and clearing payments at banks. A withdrawal of access, or a change in its terms, would then reach every sector at once,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Lagarde said this represented leverage that \u201cno trade partner has ever held over Europe, and it could be \u200cused in any negotiation, on tariffs or on digital taxes, for example\u201d.<\/p>\n

While the EU and the US remain key allies, the Trump administration has shaken that trust in a range of episodes including the imposition of tariffs, demands to take over Greenland<\/a> \u2013 a largely autonomous territory that is part of the Danish commonwealth \u2013 and the withdrawal of US troops from Europe over political disagreements.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump, pictured at an event in the White House last year, has shaken trust with his new tariff regime. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

If adopted quickly, AI could lift the level of productivity \u2013 a measure of economic performance \u2013 by up to 4% over a decade, which would be \u200btransformative for public finances, Lagarde said.<\/p>\n

Urging Europe to build more computing capacity, she said: \u201cEurope already has too little datacentre capacity to meet its own demand, and on current trends, that gap is projected to grow more than sixfold within a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n

US \u200btechnology firms\u2019 investment \u200cneeds are so \u200blarge that they are \u200bdoing some of their borrowing in Europe, pushing up costs for everyone else as they crowd out others in the debt market. European pension funds also invest heavily in US tech stocks, so any market correction would affect European savings, she added.<\/p>\n

Reuters contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Europe must develop its own AI technology and build more datacentres in order to nullify the threat of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":["post-624691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}