Lagarde Warns of Dependence on US AI: Europe Must Develop Its Own Ecosystem

Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank (ECB), is urging Europe to boost its artificial intelligence capabilities. According to her, the continent needs to integrate AI quickly and at a faster pace than the current one to take advantage of the window of opportunity to overcome productivity problems.

Lagarde estimates that an adoption and deployment of AI at the right moment could raise productivity by up to 4% over a ten-year horizon. The well-known Draghi report pointed out that a 2% increase in the same period would cover about a third of the cost of strategic investments Europe must undertake.

However, Lagarde emphasized that merely importing AI technology is not enough. The ECB's internal work warns of multiple threats to the European business fabric if it ends up completely depending on U.S. suppliers, including data management risks and potential disruptions in essential infrastructures.

The president of the ECB argued that Europe needs to deploy a robust infrastructure that facilitates the advancement of AI, as well as develop models capable of addressing most of the tasks demanded by companies and administrations. She highlighted that there are already European companies with great potential to provide the continent with its own family of models, such as Multiverse Computing.