The U.S. government blocked European access to its most advanced AI models. Austria's State Secretary for Digitalization, Alexander Pröll, now wants to lure Anthropic to the EU. Meanwhile, China looms as a supposed alternative.
The U.S. recently blocked or delayed access to two of its most advanced AI models for foreign nationals, the latest from OpenAI and Anthropic. For Europe, the takeaway is stark. Access to top-tier AI now hinges on a handful of policymakers in Washington, creating a dependency that could prove dangerous.
"Overnight, the world's largest single market—our EU single market with 450 million people—was cut off from cutting-edge innovation," writes Austrian State Secretary for Digitalization Alexander Pröll (ÖVP) in a letter to EU Commissioner for Technological Sovereignty Henna Virkkunen, seen by the Austrian Kronen Zeitung.
Pröll wants Anthropic's headquarters in Europe
In a LinkedIn post, he lays out his reasoning. "A technology that you don't produce yourself and can only use with permission is not a tool. It is a dependency." Europe should attract Anthropic by offering legal certainty, market access, and capital, all grounded in European values.
