"Some races are won or lost in the first moments after the starting whistle, so let's get this out of the way: as a whole, Europe is not competitive with the U.S. or China in developing the high-scale, foundational large language models (LLMs) on which the AI economy depends. The continent's sole noteworthy LLM, France's Mistral, is the exception that proves the rule, and still substantially smaller than those of global market leaders like OpenAI, Google, Meta, Deepseek or Anthropic. The sums being invested into these American and Chinese models make catching up unlikely."
"Does this mean that Europe has lost its chance to benefit from the AI revolution on equal terms with the U.S.? Not necessarily. The value of AI mostly manifests in how firms use the technology, says Matthias Tauber, who leads Boston Consulting Group's operations in Europe, Middle East, South America, and Africa. "When it comes to AI adoption, we don't see a difference between European or U.S. companies. Whether they will be winners, yes or no, will be determined by who drives adoption faster," he tells Fortune. Dominic King, EMEA research lead at Dublin-based consultancy and IT firm Accenture, agrees: "European companies are well-positioned to add value by building applications on top of general-purpose U.S. models." In other words, it's still all to play for."
Europe currently lacks competitive, high-scale foundational large language models, with France's Mistral as a notable but smaller exception. Massive investments in American and Chinese models make closing the gap difficult. AI value primarily arises from how firms apply the technology, and European companies can create value by building applications on top of general-purpose U.S. models. AI adoption in the EU remains low, with only 13.5% of companies using AI as of last year versus a 75% target. McKinsey estimated a 45–70% transatlantic adoption gap, though some European firms are keeping pace with global peers.
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