French artificial intelligence startup and leading European rival to OpenAI and Anthropic, Mistral AI's CEO, Arthur Mensch, warned Europe has a two-year window to build an independent AI infrastructure before losing control to American tech giants.
Europe's Digital Sovereignty Clock Is Ticking "It will be decided in the next two years," Mensch said Tuesday during a French National Assembly hearing on digital sovereignty, Business Insider reported.
Without urgent action, he cautioned, Europe risks becoming "a vassal state" entirely dependent on U.S.-sourced digital services.
"Once supply is monopolized by American players, suddenly we no longer have supply and we can no longer transform electrons into tokens," he said.
Mensch framed the threat as fundamentally an energy and compute battle.
