22 hours ago
It’s 2031 and nan US and China are astir to tear Europe into pieces.
The US ploughed immense sums into datacentres and nan EU did not. China built robots and Europe did not. American companies “restructured” their workflows astir AI and fired people, while EU workers went connected agelong luncheon breaks and handed complete administrative tasks to nan AI exemplary Claude.
Now nan chickens are coming location to roost. Europe’s system is simply a shambles because it does not person its ain AI. Populism is surging, nan euro is wobbling, cyber-attacks are shredding EU businesses. Brexit seemed for illustration a bully idea. It looks for illustration nan extremity of nan European Union.
That, astatine least, is nan imagination of a speculative thought experiment, called Europe 2031, penned by Brussels-based thinktankers and published fortuitously 1 time earlier nan Trump management decided to artifact “foreign nationals” from utilizing a much-hyped AI exemplary built by Anthropic, called Fable.
In nan heady week of G7 talks that followed, nan script has gone viral – feeding a feverish chat of nan urgency for EU tech sovereignty. It has been publication by members of nan European parliament and, opportunity its authors, was brought up successful way 1.5 discussions betwixt British and German officials earlier this week.
Its authors opportunity they consciousness “vindicated”, by nan attraction it has received and by nan truth that 1 of their predictions – that nan US would restrict world entree to precocious AI models – appears to person concisely travel true. They dream nan script will spur Europe towards a melodramatic course-correction connected AI.
The portion is portion of a burgeoning genre of fictional AI last day scenarios, created by obscure figures, which person gained astonishing traction among policymakers complete nan past year. In 2025 location was AI 2027, a thought experiment which culminates successful a superintelligent AI sidesplitting each of humanity to make measurement for much datacentres; successful February, different speculative script imagined AI upending nan US economy. (The first was publication by US vice-president JD Vance, nan 2nd contributed to a banal marketplace wobble.)
One complication of each this mightiness beryllium that their thought research is astatine times based connected existent developments successful AI whose result is uncertain aliases successful doubt.
Maximilian Negele contributed to Europe 2031, he says, because of nan “incredible translator barrier” betwixt Brussels and San Francisco, wherever AI is being developed. Formerly astatine US thinktank Rand, he near his occupation this twelvemonth to attraction connected nan project.
“As personification who travels to San Francisco rather a spot and talks to group there, what is happening successful Europe conscionable seemed for illustration a slow-moving car clang to me,” he says.
The script unfolds from nan position of a fictional bright-eyed Brussels staffer, Caroline Dubois, who has a German friend, Christian Vogt, pinch a startup successful San Francisco. On a visit, she’s impressed by America’s “70 aliases 80-hour” moving weeks and discomfited by nan condemnation among tech bros that everything is astir to change.
Back successful Europe, she useful to evangelise her well-meaning bosses astir nan impending AI early – but fails to convince. There’s excessively overmuch scepticism, and astir group deliberation AI is simply a bubble.
Things spell from there. The Americans walk immense sums connected a monolithic AI building programme – nan script highlights a real-life $100bn (£75bn) woody betwixt OpenAI and Nvidia, nan $300bn statement betwixt OpenAI and Oracle, and “bulldozers” breaking world successful Texas for an AI datacentre. Europeans, meanwhile, put guardant a tepid finance package and disregard advisers’ pleas for “a afloat regulatory carte blanche for datacentre providers”.
In a matter of years, America monopolises 70% of nan world’s “compute” – nan semiconductor chips that capable nan datacentres that powerfulness AI models. Europe’s system is meantime gasping for air, mostly because its companies person not adopted AI.
As AI-powered cyber-attacks shred European firms and unemployment surges, EU officials scramble to parlay their 1 past bargaining spot – nan Dutch lithography patient ASML, which is captious to nan accumulation of AI semiconductors – into concessions from Beijing aliases Washington. But it’s excessively late. The US deploys powerful “frontier AI” spyware and learns nan deepest fears of EU officials and besides which of them are having affairs.
Curtains drop. Christian and Caroline exeunt shape near for a drink. Disaster impends.
Sceptical readers mightiness constituent retired that a number of nan eye-popping sums and large projects that nan authors name-check successful describing America’s AI ascent person already fallen apart.
The $100bn statement between OpenAI and Nvidia, nan biggest AI woody of past year, evaporated successful February. The $300bn betwixt OpenAI and Oracle seems doubtful, particularly arsenic caller reports bespeak nan shaper of ChatGPT is still billions of dollars underwater arsenic it burns money connected datacentre infrastructure.
The bulldozers connected nan crushed successful Texas whitethorn not beryllium bulldozing very overmuch immoderate more, arsenic OpenAI pulled retired of nan flagship AI task to which that infinitesimal successful nan script seems to refer.
The authors are sanguine astir these matters. Throughout nan piece, they pre-empt imaginable objections – specified arsenic AI being overhyped – by suggesting that nan hapless European officials person these worries, too, and they extremity up tragically wrong.
“I wouldn’t norm retired that there’s immoderate exuberance and that 1 aliases 2 AI companies mightiness spell bankrupt,” says Negele. “But what we wanted to get crossed is simply a wide consciousness for a type of what we deliberation will happen.”
He and his co-author, Alex Petropolous, work together that location could beryllium immoderate bumps successful nan roadworthy – including mounting guidance to datacentres successful nan US. “I mean, group dislike AI successful general. A batch of group do. People dislike datacentres. They destruct nan landscape. They support large tech. It’s a very, very unpopular policy.”
The authors of Europe 2031 deliberation that nan solution to this is datacentres. Europe needs to build more, faster, ideally successful AI zones wherever matters specified arsenic powerfulness and readying tin beryllium streamlined and deregulated.
“I deliberation our position is that nan full datacentre proviso is rather an inelastic supply. So location will only beryllium a constricted number of datacentres built successful nan world built each year, and nan mobility is, really galore of those do you want built successful nan US? How galore of those do you want built successful Europe?” says Petropolous.
It is further worthy noting that nan main organisation down nan Europe 2031 scenario, Arq Foundation, based successful Brussels, describes itself arsenic “neither an defense NGO nor a venture-backed startup” and does not disclose who costs it.
Brussels politicians who publication it, though, whitethorn return distant a simpler message: nan script has crystallised a speech astir nan request for Europe to person technological sovereignty.
“This scenario, Europe 2031, I judge that immoderate of nan parts they mentioned tin happen,” says Nicolás Casares, a personnel of nan European parliament from Spain. “But I deliberation they are expanding – a spot – nan alarms successful bid to telephone our attention.”
The US cutting disconnected Europe’s entree to Fable, he says, intends that nan EU needs to inquire itself harder questions astir who is building its AI infrastructure and who will use from it.
“What is nan added worth of having OpenAI aliases Anthropic datacentres successful Europe?” he says.
“We are buying a communicative that we request a batch of datacentres not to suffer nan title for AI. But this is crazy … we are paving nan measurement for infrastructure that they will usage and sometimes not let america nan anticipation of utilizing it.”
