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October 12, 2026

Scarcity is the mother of European AI invention

As the US and China pour billions into AI, Europe’s startups are betting ingenuity can trump spending power

John Thornhill

4 min read

The global consensus on the future of AI is that it is a two-horse race between the US and China with Europe, and the rest of the world, hobbling far behind. The colossal scale of investments that the US hyperscalers and Chinese tech giants are making in model development and data centre infrastructure will leave everyone else in the dust.

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John Thornhill

John Thornhill is Sifted’s founder and innovation editor of the Financial Times. He tweets from @johnthornhillft

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