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First, Elon Musk is there to protect Tesla’s massive Chinese footprint and his interests as head of xAI. Tim Cook is managing his final lap as Apple’s CEO, balancing billions in sales with a shift of production away from China.
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There is also the “king of chips,” Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, who joined at the last minute to lobby for the sale of powerful H200 AI chips currently stalled by US and Chinese regulations.
Joining them are the giants of the supply chain. Micron is there to fight Beijing’s ban on American memory chips, while Qualcomm aims to protect its role as the primary chip supplier for China’s biggest smartphone brands.
And they aren’t just talking trade: they are discussing the “new age” of AI-supported warfare and the risk of China copying American frontier models. If you’ve ever wondered what the AI industry looks like in practice, these CEOs provide the perfect picture.
And that picture also highlights where Europe stands in the AI race. If looking for a European OpenAI or Google, the news is grim: the continent lacks hyperscale giants. But the news isn’t all bad, as Europe is securing its AI supply chain. While superpowers fight over models, European firms like STMicroelectronics, Soitec, and ASML provide the essential hardware to build them.
This is a bet on “strategic autonomy” – the idea that you don’t need to out-spend the superpowers if you control the tools that drive the race.
Will this be enough? Well, you can always ask this question to your favourite AI agent. Just remember, the answer might vary depending on whether you ask Elon Musk’s Grok or France’s Mistral.
Watch the Euronews video in the player above for the full story.
