Europe Is running out of time. In June, a group of AI governance experts published a chilling doomsday scenario: Unless Europe accelerates AI investment by 2031, it risks economic marginalization—outcompeted by the U.S. and China and vulnerable to sophisticated cyberattacks.
The warning echoes that of Arthur Mensch, CEO of Paris-based AI company Mistral, and this issue’s cover star. Without building its own AI infrastructure, he says, Europe risks becoming a “vassal state,” permanently dependent on U.S. technology.
These fears were briefly realized when the U.S. government ordered Anthropic to cut foreign access to its most advanced AI models. Since then, AI sovereignty has rapidly risen up the agenda of European policymakers. Mistral is Europe’s AI front-runner, and there are hopes it could be the answer to the continent’s AI sovereignty question. Mensch, however, has no interest in limiting the company’s ambition. As he tells our tech reporter Beatrice Nolan in “Europe’s AI sovereignty is under threat. Could Mistral be the answer?“, he wants Mistral to become a genuine global contender.
An AI reckoning is not the only threat facing Europe. A series of record heat waves have caused large areas of Western Europe to swelter this summer—as my London-based Fortune colleagues and I can attest to (temperatures topped 36°C in the city this June). The soaring heat poses risks to both businesses and workers. In “Europe’s employers face a new challenge—keeping workers safe during heatwaves,” Oliver Balch speaks to the companies scrambling to retrofit workplaces, create cooler environments, and provide protective equipment, in an effort to preserve productivity.
