Where is Europe in the global AI race?

DW (English)

China and the US are the global leaders in artificial intelligence. Europe is lagging far behind – but can it make up ground in this vital technology of the future?

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00:00A whole new world of art, created almost entirely by computer.

00:06We can use generative AI to create things like text, images or even music.

00:11Leading the way on the artificial intelligence front are the US and China,

00:16where even tea harvesting is becoming automated on a trial basis.

00:20As for Europe, it has some serious catching up to do

00:23with what is probably the most important technology of the future.

00:28French startup Nuke AI develops new solutions for improving efficiency at logistics companies.

00:36The difference between our AI and other providers is that we involve people.

00:42We don't need huge amounts of data to be fed into machines.

00:46Our focus is on human beings working together with machines.

00:51We use machines to work better.

00:57France wants to become a leader in AI and has been actively attracting investors.

01:02The head of Microsoft wants to invest 4 billion euros in a new data center in France,

01:07which will also provide a boost for a number of new smaller firms.

01:13Startups in France will benefit from the financial support and advice on offer.

01:21France is still some way off the industry's leaders

01:24when it comes to patent applications and investments in AI data centers.

01:30The French government should focus on what we're good at,

01:33instead of trying to compete in areas where the US and China have a head start.

01:40It should support AI technologies that take a different approach to those that are currently on vogue.

01:48Berlin, Germany's political and AI capital.

01:53A range of cutting-edge companies have set up operations in the city.

01:57Among the complex tasks being worked on here at JetBrains, for example,

02:01instead of reading a 50-page document, you can ask questions and get answers about specific points.

02:07Part of the problem is we approach these models like we're speaking to another person that can understand us.

02:12But really they're just sophisticated algorithms that need specific instructions.

02:16So changes in, say, the wording or the tone can give us drastically different outputs.

02:22For good results, the AI might need a prompt comprising several pages of text.

02:27Prompt engineering is a fairly new business with high demand and relatively few machine learning experts.

02:34And when it comes to salaries, too, Europe is struggling to compete with the US.

02:41In the United States, salary sites indicate that this job is on average earning about $130,000 a year.

02:47But many people work with prompting, most notably ML engineers.

02:51And this job requires a deep knowledge of ML models beyond just prompting.

02:55So ML engineers are earning on average about $175,000.

03:00But competition for the best human minds is not everything.

03:04The focus has really been different.

03:06So in the United States, the top companies that are producing the top models are there.

03:10But they're really releasing these models in a proprietary fashion, so you have to pay to use them.

03:14In China and in Europe, by contrast, a lot of the focus has been on open-source models.

03:19So releasing models that are free and anyone can use them.

03:22So interestingly, some of these open-source models are also becoming competitive with those released by the top US AI companies.

03:31The US is still clearly ahead in AI.

03:34But some of the multi-billion dollar investments there have failed to pay off.

03:42After a sluggish start, European companies are now starting to make up ground.

03:48Meanwhile, China is itself hoping to surpass the US.

03:53The race to outperform the competition for AI supremacy is not over.

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