US distances itself from AI regulation: "It's a terrible mistake"

ParisThe new US administration is not exactly known for its diplomacy. This was made clear by US Vice President JD Vance at the international summit on artificial intelligence (AI) held in Paris. Trump's envoy to the meeting spoke openly and bluntly in his defence of AI without regulations or censorship that "stifles" the development of this technology. Vance argued during his speech at the summit on Tuesday that international regulation "is a terrible mistake".

The US Vice President warned against "excessive regulation" of AI in Europe and the moderation of online content, as well as "ideological bias", which Washington sees as "authoritarian censorship". Vance was critical of both the European Digital Services Regulation – the legal basis with which the EU tries to prevent electoral interference and disinformation on social media, especially on X, owned by Elon Musk – and the new European AI regulation, which came into force a week ago and which is committed to ethical artificial intelligence, which prevents abuse and misuse. The new regulation, among other things, demands that there be no gender or racial bias in AI applications.

"We are convinced that AI must be free from ideological biases and that American AI will not become a tool of authoritarian censorship," said the American vice president, alluding to both Europe and China. Vance has also launched direct attacks against the Asian country, which has recently challenged the US leadership in AI with the DeepSeek application, warning of partnerships with "authoritarian regimes." And he has made it clear that the US will not give ground to the Asian giant: "The United States is the leader in AI and we intend to remain so," he said.

Contrasting visions

Vance's position, although not surprising, reveals two completely opposite visions. While Europe defends a more ethical, regulated and sustainable AI, the United States shuns any regulation that limits this technology and proclaims an AI development without limitations. The architect of the summit, the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, aspired to a minimum agreement for a global regulation, but neither the United States nor the United Kingdom have wanted to sign the final declaration of the meeting, which calls for an AI "open to all, inclusive, transparent and ethical." The fact that Washington and London have distanced themselves from the text has been a bucket of cold water for Macron.

All in all, the summit has served to give a push to the European actors. The EU is not willing to losethe artificial intelligence (AI) train. The race is onclearly dominated by the United StatesandChina, but EU countriesEuropean companies want to boost European industry to try to enter the race and not miss the opportunity of the new technological revolution. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced this Tuesday that 200 billion euros will be mobilized in investments in the AI sector in the next five years.

Europe, AI continent

The money, mainly private but also public, will be used "to develop the most advanced major models that will make Europe a continent of AI," said Von der Leyen at the summit's final conference. "This is the challenge we face with artificial intelligence: to embrace great technological transformations, to master profound advances and to do so at the service of our humanity," stressed Macron. France, which has just launched its own AI application, LeChat, from the company Mistral, hopes to lead its new European push and has announced investments of 109 billion euros for the sector.

Of the 200 billion European euros, at least 150 billion will be private capital that will be invested by some sixty large European companies from different fields - such as Airbus, Orange, Spotify, Siemens, L'Oréal, Philips and Henkel, among others - in a new alliance, she announces. The rest, 50 billion, will be community funds that will be used to finance four future "gigafactories" in Europe that will be specialized in the creation of AI models that are more complex and larger than the current ones.

A Catalan startup, in the European alliance

The start-up Catalan company TravelPerk, dedicated to business travel management, is also participating in the alliance of European companies that will invest in European AI. It is the only company from Spain that has joined the project. None of the large Spanish companies or multinationals are participating, except for the Airbus group, which has its headquarters in France but has Spanish participation. TravelPerk is run by Israeli Avi Meir, who has been based in Barcelona for years, and is one of the so-called "unicorns", companies that exceed a valuation of 1 billion dollars without having a stock market presence.

Last week, the Catalan capital launched the first state-owned quantum computer made with 100% European technology, installed at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, one of the European AI factories financed with EU funds. Now Europe aims to promote gigafactories with 100,000 cutting-edge AI chips, four times more than the current factories. Although Spain has little presence in the European business alliance to relaunch AI, the Minister of Digital Transformation, Óscar López, has assured at the Paris summit that Spain "is one of the main European drivers in AI."

With this initiative, Europe wants to give a historic boost to AI and try to compete with the ambitious American Stargate project, financed with 500 billion dollars, and with China, which has just launched the DeepSeek AI application at a much lower cost than American AI models.