Watch: Washington, Anthropic, and the AI kill switch—can Europe actually build tech independence?

Published on

15/06/2026 - 9:00 GMT+2

Last Friday, one of the AI race leaders, Anthropic, pressed the "kill switch" on its most advanced models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5. Following a surprise directive from the Trump administration citing national security, the company was forced to ban all non-US citizens from its frontier technology.

Across the continent, research labs, tech firms, and even some hospitals have spent the last year piloting these US-made systems for core operations. Now, they have learned that their digital infrastructure can be unplugged overnight.

European leaders across the spectrum—from France's far-right presidential candidate Jordan Bardella to the European Commission's own spokesperson, Thomas Regnier—are in rare agreement, arguing that nations that do not develop and control their own AI models will remain entirely dependent on the choices of foreign powers.