Industry steps up as EU debates an action plan for AI

As the AI Action Summit got underway in Paris this morning, dozens of corporations, investment groups, and technology providers revealed a new project that aims to "unlock Europe's full potential" in the fast-evolving space.

The EU AI Champions Initiative, led by venture capital firm General Catalyst, is bringing together more than 60 organisations – including pharma giant Novo Nordisk and AI tech specialists that serve the industry like Owkin and Cradle.

The group is pushing for an EU-wide mobilisation of talent and capital and accelerating AI adoption by European companies to increase their competitiveness in a global market.

It wants to see simplified regulations, greater access to funding, investment in the infrastructure needed to support AI, and efforts to inform the public of the benefits of the technology, according to a report (PDF) that accompanies the launch of the initiative.

That highlights how generative AI could boost Europe's productivity, featuring examples like Novo Nordisk's use of AI for drug discovery.

"Europe must catalyse synergy across technology, capital, and policy by establishing a targeted, competition-driven AI framework," said Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, managing director of General Catalysts' investment team.

The two-day summit, hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysée Palace and welcoming world leaders as well as tech bosses, academics, and others with a stake in AI, comes as the EU risks falling further behind the US in the AI arms race as well as upstarts like China, which made waves a couple of weeks ago when it revealed cut-price AI assistant DeepSeek as a rival to ChatGPT.

Macron showcased plans to invest €109 billion ($112 billion) of AI investments in France in the next few years, which follows a $500 billion investment programme announced last month by US President Donald Trump. Also unveiled at the summit was a new investment vehicle, Current AI, that aims to raise $2.5 billion for 'public interest' projects that "measure AI's social and environmental impact."

Commenting on the Champions Initiative, Cradle co-founder and chief executive Stef van Grieken said that technological transitions such as mobile, social and cloud created completely novel markets and, in the era of AI, "many industries that are at the core of Europe's prosperity will be under pressure to transform."

He added that the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors are industries where the transformative impact of AI is already being felt through the use of AI-driven protein design.

"As a Dutchman who spent a long time in the San Francisco Bay Area, operating in Europe today often feels like running a marathon in clogs - everything is 5-10% harder than it needs to be," said van Grieken.

"From visa processing times to university collaborations, from banking to investment - these are all solvable challenges. With initiatives like today's summit, I'm optimistic we can remove these hurdles and ensure Europe leads in critical sectors such as biotech and healthcare."