‘Europe should leave the sprint for the largest frontier AI model and run a different race, not a sprint but a marathon, We need our own race,’ said Jo Caudron from the consultancy firm Scopernia at the Beltug Summer event in Leuven
‘The goal is AI that creates value rather than destroys it. Most European work does not require superintelligence. The winning AI system is the one that preserves social stability, safety, and sovereignty. Europe does not have a decade to establish that model’.
Jo Caudron believes Europe can avoid being squeezed between two superpowers (US and China). ‘We will have to accept higher costs to restore strategic capabilities, use transition-based thinking, reindustrialize, and build stronger international relationships’.
His closing argument centered on hope for younger Europeans. Affluent societies focus on defending what they have, while people with little but a credible path upward can remain optimistic. Europe needs a visible next mountain. ‘Because Europe lacks hyperscalers, dominant social platforms, and comparable technology stacks, it has less to lose by reinventing them. The same applies to energy and industry. Manufacturing that was outsourced can return in a modern form built around robots and AI. New generations also create industries around long-term adaptation, including radically redesigned cities’
Europe is no longer only an incumbent defending the old normal. It can become the challenger at the start of a new curve.
