If Europe is serious about getting home grown AI fast, three simple steps:
1. Huge tax incentives, let the companies get grossly wealthy while paying minimal taxes. Minimum 10 years with clauses protecting "retribution" taxes there after.
2. Tax incentives for the founders/shareholders, just like above.
3. Drop worker protections to a minimum, make it easy to fire people. You only want serious/dedicated employees anyway.
Within 2-3 years there will be at least a trillion dollars looking to get in.
Don't worry though if reading that made you mad. Its absolutely not going to happen. I can think of few things more antithetical to the European ethos than smart skilled people working 80-100hrs weeks with almost no vacation to gas their founders net worth by tens, hundreds, of billions.
Some additional points to consider:
1. Pay the workers in company scrip and relocate the workers to a company town. That way, all workers are fully dedicated to the company.
2. Start importing slaves from Africa again. It worked to build up massive wealth. Should do the trick for AI as well.
3. Abolish the 8 hour work day. No comment needed.
With these 3 simple tricks, you too can get 6-7 bazillion euro AI mammoths.
No, we don't need any slavery. The employees at these AI companies will almost certainly out earn most if not all other local white collar workers, while also getting top tier benefits. They can also quit at any time if they don't like it or don't think it is fair.
This "greed is good, and should be rewarded" philosophy is one I see all too often on HN, and the entire reason why Americas political, regulatory, and business leadership have been overrun by the countries most criminally corrupt narcissists and psychopaths; why its democracy has collapsed.
When you reward the most selfish, corrupt, and antisocial behaviours with wealth and power, you're guaranteed to create a selfish, corrupt, and antisocial society. IMHO it's indicative of what I have dubbed Americas "mental illness epidemic"; specifically cluster B personality disorders [0] which are characterised by socially-destructive and self-destructive behaviours.
If that's the world you want for you and your loved ones, congratulations. You've earned it!
[0] https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_personality_dis...
If tax incentives to attract companies and at-will employment are already viewed as a destructive collapse of democracy, it's no wonder we are not getting anything done here in Europe.
I suggest you take the time to read independent analysis on the benefits of corporate subsidies in America.
I know I've read of many cases where they cost cities and communities far more than the economic activity they promise to generate (eg Amazon warehouses and sportsball stadiums).
Subsidies could make strategic sense in the case of AI, but it's terrible economics to encourage businesses that take more from communities than they give back, especially those that don't employ many people.
Data centers are known to create few local jobs while requiring upgrades to the power grid or water infrastructure.
Wouldn't that make it important to subsidize them at the national level, precisely for that reason? Otherwise it seems likely to be a NIMBY problem.
But now I'm talking about data centers, the main thing we lack here is AI research labs, is it not? I think those should create many jobs.
No greed will be rewarded. If European consumers don't like the end AI models that are produced, they can forgo buying them and the investors can watch their fortress burn. For the EU taxpayer, nothing was gained and nothing was lost. All the state did was stand out of the way.
If the models are good though, they will have their sovereign AI and should be happy to pay for it instead of American or Chinese models. You may call it greed, but to me it just sounds fair.
3 Times As Many Europeans Move to the US, than the Other Way Around.
[1]: https://mises.org/mises-wire/3-times-many-europeans-move-us-...
In 2017. Wonder what it's like today.
"US, for 1st time in 50 years, experienced negative net migration in 2025" [0]
Curious how they jumped for nearly decade old stats, huh?
[0] https://abcnews.com/US/us-1st-time-50-years-experienced-nega...
Butcher worker protections and quality of life across all industries to (hypothethically) benefit a single one?
No thanks.
Why do you feel grinding insane hours would be beneficial to AI progress?
Exactly this. You can't have a competitive industry while at the same time heavily redistributing wealth to the point where people don't have any incentives at all.
They can be serious about home-grown AI without needing to become a libertarian capitalist hellscape. I prefer happiness, safety and privacy over competing with the US / China.
Sure, but good luck finding serious top tier AI researchers who are willing to work for $80k/yr when the US is offering them upwards of $1M/yr.