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Your Guide to Washington and the World's 2024 US Election Means
Be careful of what you want. Donald Trump's desperate courtship in Silicon Valley seems to be rewarded. In his first week, the US president said he wanted US companies to abolish Biden's executive order on AI safety and to take control of the world of artificial intelligence. His support has sparked new confidence and urged American tech companies to step up pressure on regulated facilities in Brussels.
Even the fact that American tech companies enjoy reprieve from their habitual role as Trump's punch bag on social media, it's heading for the better, but that's because his anger is a shunning president's whim This does not mean that you won't spin again on a turn that doesn't allow you to do so. .
However, the risk of repulsion is increasing. At the height of geopolitical tensions, it is already affecting what is considered both a symbol and a tool for American power.
One obvious sign of this is how tech companies seem to be set up to be drawn into a fierce battle that will damage as the new administration is wielding trade tariffs as a versatile weapon.
Given his closeness with the president, the company owned by Elon Musk is first in the fire line. The Financial Times reported this week that Tesla appears to be banned from testing unmanned vehicle software on Chinese streets as trade tensions rise. There was also a wider agitation of action. China has launched a new antitrust investigation into the alphabet, appearing to increase scrutiny of US chip companies.
But the greater risk lies further ahead. Over the years of US-led globalization, much of the world has been energizing and opening up US tech companies. As the international order is experiencing the changes it suffers, it appears to be a thing of the past – even in the short term, the raw efforts of the US power will boost businesses.
This combination of short-term advantage and long-term risk seems less obvious than in Europe.
Even without US pressure, Brussels has already shown signs of rethinking its role as a regulator. The dangers of taking a regulatory-driven approach to technology are highlighted by former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi. Written in last week's FT, Draghi said that no praiseworthy goals to use regulations to mitigate the risks of technology are much less to boost the broader welfare of European citizens.
In one indication of the shift, Brussels has abolished plans to hold tech companies accountable for AI mistakes. This has been criticized in Silicon Valley, but it threatened to hold back Europe's own tech startup.
EU regulators are also pondering how aggressively they should apply new digital market laws to the US technology giants. It's too early to say what this leads to, but after being on the receiving end of the multi-billion dollar fine, Silicon Valley felt a change.
However, the transatlantic shock waves have spread across Europe during Trump's first few weeks of office. For their critics in Europe, the tech companies are working closely with the new US administration only confirmed long-standing suspicions. Companies are just digital settlers and are more interested in their power and wealth than in the happiness of the continent's inhabitants.
The concerns about US dependency renew the interest in the idea of the “Eurostack,” a complete set of technology infrastructure managed in Europe, from chips to software applications.
The impact from such ideas can be very limited in the short term. There is no alternative to some strategic American technology, such as AI chips. The vast scale of cloud infrastructure companies and the dominance of many areas of software make them invaluable.
The problem is that, along with growing tensions with the US and the wider use of AI, creating the biggest new opportunities with technology over the years, is sufficient to invigorate European policymakers and tech entrepreneurs. It's whether there is.
There have been few previous attempts to build European versions of US-owned infrastructure, such as the Quaero Web Search Engine and the Gaia-X system in the Federating Cloud Data Center. However, as Deepseek's groundbreaking move in AI shows, AI may be widespread open to confusion.
For Silicon Valley, it is clear risk to be identified too closely as a president who is recoiling the world from US power. However, given his need for approval, they may not have a choice.
richard.waters@ft.com
