The U.S. shutdown of Anthropic's AI models prompted governments worldwide to pursue domestic AI capabilities, revealing how dependent Europe and other regions have become on American technology they cannot control.

What happened

On Friday, the U.S. government cut off global access to Anthropic's most powerful AI models. In the UK, hospitals, companies, and researchers lost access to Fable 5. The move triggered urgent calls from European and other politicians for their countries to build sovereign AI—homegrown models and computing infrastructure they control themselves, rather than relying on systems that can be restricted by foreign governments.

Why it matters

Europe relies on non-EU countries for more than 80% of its technology and 70% of its cloud computing, and the U.S. and China together control roughly 90% of global AI computing infrastructure. The shutdown exposed what Oxford professor Sandra Wachter called a long-known but never-felt vulnerability: "we have never quite felt what it's meant to be on the shorter side of the stick—on the side that actually has to face the kill switch." Defense and AI capability are now intertwined; UK Minister for AI Kanishka Narayan noted that the most capable AI models are used in drones, counter-drone systems, and cyber security—making them a "fundamental fault line for who wins and who loses in warfare."

What to watch

The European Commission released the European Technological Sovereignty Package on June 3, targeting an estimated €422 billion ($490 billion（約78兆円）) in total investment across semiconductors, data centers, cloud, AI, and open-source software over the next decade, with the Cloud and AI Development Act aiming to triple data center capacity in the EU over the next five to seven years. Mistral, Europe's leading frontier AI company, is reportedly in talks to raise $3.5 billion（約5600億円） in funding at a $23.2 billion（約3.7兆円） valuation. However, critics including economist Cristina Caffarra have called the package "very feeble," noting that only around 10% of cloud contracts would carry a strong European sovereignty standard, with the remaining 90% open to all suppliers.