Mistral CEO warns Europe has two years to avoid becoming America’s AI “vassal state”

Arthur Mensch, CEO of Mistral AI, says Europe has two years to develop its AI industry and cut imports of digital services from the US.

Speaking at France’s National Assembly, Mensch said two years is the timeframe Europe has to build its own AI infrastructure before becoming permanently dependent on the US, Business Insider reports.

The boss of Mistral AI – a European rival to OpenAI – warned French lawmakers that the continent also risks losing control of the energy and computing infrastructure powering AI models.

"Once supply is monopolized by American players, suddenly we no longer have supply, and we can no longer transform electrons into tokens," he said.

Mensch, whose company built the only European frontier large language model, urged the continent to develop its own AI industry and cut imports of digital services from the US before becoming America’s “vassal state.”

Mensch has been a strong proponent of European digital sovereignty, an idea gaining traction among the bloc’s politicians and citizens amid frayed relations with the Donald Trump administration.

However, the European Union (EU) currently hosts only about 5% of global AI computing capacity, while its startups attract just 6% of global AI venture funding, according to a 2025 report by Rand and the Center for Future Generations.

In addition, the report emphasizes that energy costs in Europe are significantly higher than in the US, and the continent loses much of its top AI talent to US companies.

The EU’s AI Continent Action Plan, introduced in April 2025, foresees a significant scaling up of the bloc’s compute infrastructure. This includes tripling the EU’s data center capacity in the next 5-7 years and deploying up to 5 AI gigafactories.

However, expanding infrastructure may not be enough.

Mensch was among other CEOs of leading European technology companies who signed an open letter to European leaders in May 2025, calling for easing AI regulations.

They argued that rules must act as “agile guardrails rather than rigid, detailed requirements, keeping pace with the speed of technological development.”

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