Bangladesh, Aug. 22 -- Europe does not need to spend a trillion euros to become an AI power. It needs something more difficult: a strategy that can succeed under radically different technological futures.

That lesson became painfully clear when Washington temporarily restricted foreign access to Anthropics most advanced artificial intelligence models. For European companies, governments and researchers, the episode was a reminder that access to frontier AI can depend on decisions made thousands of kilometers away. Even when restrictions are temporary, the disruption exposes a fundamental vulnerability: Europe remains heavily dependent on technologies and infrastructure controlled elsewhere.

At almost the same time, China offered Europe ...