European AI Firms Reject US Calls to Slow Development

European artificial intelligence companies are pushing back against proposals from leading US developers to slow the pace of AI advancement, arguing that safety concerns are being weaponized to protect incumbent market positions.

French startup Mistral, widely regarded as Europe's strongest contender in frontier AI development, issued a statement criticizing what it characterized as anticompetitive behavior disguised as safety advocacy. The company's response came after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay urging advanced AI developers to voluntarily reduce the speed of capability improvements and calling for antitrust exemptions that would allow major labs to coordinate on safety measures.

Why it matters

Europe has struggled to produce competitive frontier AI models, leaving the region heavily dependent on systems built by OpenAI, Anthropic, and Microsoft. This technological gap has significant implications for digital sovereignty and economic competitiveness. The debate over development speed isn't just about safety—it's about whether emerging players will have the opportunity to challenge established leaders or whether the current market structure becomes permanently entrenched.

European skepticism runs deep

Multiple European executives and officials expressed doubt about the motivations behind calls for coordinated slowdowns. Raphael Auphan, chief operating officer of Swiss privacy software company Proton, told a Paris tech event that the proposals appeared "totally self-serving" and designed to "preserve a dimension of dependency on their service."

Clement Delangue, CEO of French-American software company Hugging Face, countered on X that "it's not time to slow down but to accelerate," though he did endorse Amodei's suggestion to embed independent evaluators inside AI companies.

Ben Brooks, head of public policy at German AI startup Black Forest Labs, warned that creating arbitrary thresholds between large labs and new entrants would "chill open innovation at or near the frontier."

Regulatory capture concerns

Academic voices joined the criticism. Kristian Kersting, an AI professor at Germany's Technical University of Darmstadt, characterized Amodei's proposals as "regulatory capture," arguing that allowing a handful of large companies to define what constitutes dangerous AI, select their own inspectors, and receive competition law exemptions falls short of genuine regulation.

French finance minister Roland Lescure told Reuters he could "clearly see their self-interest" in proposals that would require everyone behind current leaders to slow down.

Europe's strategic imperative

German officials emphasized that stopping AI development contradicts Europe's need for digital sovereignty. Daniel Abbou, head of Germany's AI industry association, said the debate over slowing down is "irrelevant" for European firms that must first "catch up on our technological backlog."

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated that the EU's landmark AI regulations position the bloc to shape global efforts on AI risks, while Britain's King Charles hosted tech and AI leaders at a summit in Scotland to discuss these issues.

These details were first reported by Reuters correspondents in Paris and Frankfurt.