EU tech chief: only 'very trusted partners' for AI chips amid Nvidia crisis
The European Union's technology chief says the bloc should rely only on very trusted partners for AI chips, as U.S. chipmaker Nvidia is hit by a spy scandal. Europe has no homegrown alternative to the company.
The European Union's technology chief has said the bloc should work only with "very trusted partners" when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) chips. The comment comes as the U.S. chipmaker Nvidia faces a crisis, Politico Europe reports.
The crisis stems from a spy scandal: Nvidia's chief executive, Jensen Huang, may have been caught up in a Chinese espionage operation. Even so, Europe has no homegrown alternative to Nvidia, and Politico says it will take more than the scandal to change the EU's reliance on the company.
Wider context
Several other problems are weighing on European tech policy. Sixteen EU countries have not yet appointed officials responsible for AI safety, and many missed an important deadline related to data centers.
Separately, a dispute over the size of the EU's 2028–2034 budget has blocked decision-making in Brussels. Proposals tied to EU funding are stuck, including those on AI chips, the Arctic and agriculture.
A member of the European Parliament has also urged Europe to stop using U.S. technology, saying a Starlink service cutoff led to deaths. The lawmaker pushed back on calls for Europe to forgo building its own frontier AI models.
