EU AI strategy is out: Europe must triple compute capacity by 2030

Transformative AI Strategy for Europe is out, and it opens with a pretty blunt warning. Its authors say Europe needs to raise its share of advanced-model compute from about 5% to 15% by 2030. If it doesn’t, they argue, the region risks becoming a “playground for foreign powers.”

Philippe Aghion, Margrethe Vestager, Monika Schnitzer, and Marta Kwiatkowska write that the European Union held only about 5% of global compute capacity in 2026, compared with 78% for the US and 11% for China. The point they’re making is simple: if Europe wants to build, train, and deploy AI systems that can actually compete, regulation by itself won’t get it there.

From there, the paper argues for a major build-out of data centers, tied to clear local benefits, plus easier scaling for startups and a smarter use of chokepoints such as ASML to improve access to frontier compute. It also notes that AI investment reached 6.8 billion in 2025, up 83.3%, while enterprise adoption averaged 20% across the European Union. That figure ranged from 42% in Denmark to 5.2% in Romania, and smaller firms are still trailing.

And compute isn’t the only issue on the list. The paper also calls for more frontier technical talent inside European Union institutions, more technical enforcement of systemic-risk rules, stronger cyber protections, crisis stockpiles for biological and other catastrophic risks, and European leadership in assurance technology.

You can read the paper online.