France and Britain are battling it out for Europe’s A.I. crown
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Kin Cheung | Pool | Getty Images
LONDON — Two countries are jockeying for position as Europe’s capital for artificial intelligence.
Both French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have made bold statements about AI in recent weeks, as each tries to claim a stake in the highly hyped market.
“I think we are number one [in AI] in continental Europe, and we have to accelerate,” Macron told CNBC’s Karen Tso at France’s annual tech conference Viva Tech on June 18, while Sunak pitched the U.K. as the “geographical home of global AI safety regulation” at the London Tech Week conference on June 12.
AI is seen as revolutionary and therefore of strategic importance to governments around the world.
Hype around the technology has been partly sparked by the viral nature of Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT. It has also been the source of tech tensions between the U.S. and China as countries around the world try to harness the potential of the most critical technologies.
So, who is leading the race to take Europe’s AI crown?
Money matters
At VivaTech in Paris, Macron announced 500 million euros ($562 million) in new funding to create new AI “champions.” This comes on top of previous commitments from the government, including a promise to pump 1.5 billion euros into artificial intelligence before 2022, in an attempt to catch up with the U.S. and Chinese markets.
“We will invest like crazy on training and research,” Macron told CNBC, adding that France is well-positioned in AI due to its access to talent and startups forming around the technology.
In March, the U.K. government pledged £1 billion ($1.3 billion) to supercomputing and AI research, as it looks to become a “science and technology superpower.”
As part of the strategy, the government said it wanted to spend around £900 million on building an “exascale” computer capable of building its own “BritGPT,” which would rival OpenAI’s generative AI chatbot.
However, some officials have criticized the funding pledge, saying it’s not enough to help the U.K. compete with titans like the U.S. and China.
“It sounds great but it’s nowhere near where we need to be,” Sajid Javid, a former government minister in ex-PM Boris Johnson’s cabinet, said in a fireside discussion at London Tech Week.
Policing A.I. abuses
One big difference between the U.K. and France is how each country is opting to regulate artificial intelligence, and the laws already in place that affect the quick-moving technology.
The European Union has its AI Act, which is set to be the first comprehensive set of laws focusing on artificial intelligence in the West. The legislation was approved by lawmakers in the European Parliament in June.
It assesses different applications of AI based on risk — for example, real-time biometric identification and social scoring systems are considered as posing “unacceptable risk,” and are therefore banned under the regulation.
France will be under direct jurisdiction of the AI Act, and it would be “unsurprising” if the relevant French regulator, either the CNIL or a new, AI-specific regulator, took an “aggressive approach” to its enforcement, according to Minesh Tanna, global AI lead at international law firm Simmons & Simmons.
In the U.K., rather than issue AI-specific laws, the government launched a white paper advising various industry regulators on how they should enforce existing rules on their respective sectors. The white paper takes a principles-based approach to regulating AI.
The government has touted the framework as a “flexible” approach to regulation, which Tanna described as more “pro-innovation” than the French method.
“The UK’s approach is driven, in a post-Brexit world, by a desire to encourage AI investment,” he added, which gives the U.K. more “freedom and flexibility to pitch regulation at the appropriate level to encourage investment,” he said in an email to CNBC.
In contrast the EU’s AI Act could make France “less attractive” for investment in artificial intelligence given that it lays down “a burdensome regulatory regime” for AI, Tanna said.
Who will win?
“France definitely has a chance to be the leader in Europe, but it faces stiff competition from Germany and the U.K.,” Anton Dahbura, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy, told CNBC via email.
Alexandre Lebrun, CEO of Nabla, an AI “copilot” for doctors, said the U.K. and France are “probably even” when it comes to attractiveness for starting an AI company.
“There’s a good talent pool, strongholds like Google and Facebook AI research centers, and a reasonable local market,” he told CNBC, but he warned that the EU AI Act would make it “impossible” for startups to build AI in the EU.
“If at the same time the U.K. adopts a smarter law, it will definitely win against EU and France,” Lebrun added.
At the same time, London has been the source of a lot of doom and gloom from some corners of the industry, who’ve criticized the country for being an unattractive place for tech entrepreneurs.
Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition Labour party, told attendees at London Tech Week that a series of political crises in the country has dented investor sentiment on tech generally.
“Many investors say to me we are not investing in the U.K. right now because we don’t see the conditions of certainty politically that we need in order to invest,” Starmer said.
Claire Trachet, CFO of French tech startup YesWeHack, said the U.K. and France both have potential to challenge the dominance of U.S. AI giants — but it’s just as much about collaboration across Europe as it is competition between different hubs.
“It would require a concerted and collective effort of European tech superpowers,” she said. “To truly make a meaningful impact, they must leverage their collective resources, foster collaboration, and invest in nurturing a robust ecosystem.”
“Combining strengths — particularly with Germany’s involvement — could allow them to create a compelling alternative in the next 10-15 years that disrupts the AI landscape, but again, this would require a heavily strategic vision and collaborative approach,” Trachet added.
Technology
‘Robotaxi has reached a tipping point’: Baidu, Nvidia leaders see momentum as competition rises
Chinese tech company Baidu announced Monday it can sell some robotaxi rides without any human staff in the vehicles.
Baidu
BEIJING — Chinese robotaxi companies are expanding abroad at a faster clip than U.S. rivals Waymo and Tesla — at a time when industry leaders say autonomous driving is finally near an inflection point.
“I think robotaxi has reached a tipping point, both here in China and in the U.S.,” Baidu CEO Robin Li said Tuesday on an earnings call, according to a FactSet transcript.
“There are enough people who have [had the] chance to experience driverless rides, and the word of mouth has created positive social media feedback,” he said, noting that the wider public exposure could speed up regulatory approval.
His comments echoed similar notes of optimism in the last few weeks from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Xpeng Co-President Brian Gu — who reversed his previously cautious stance after faster-than-anticipated tech advances. Xpeng is launching robotaxis in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou next year.
It’s a global market with significant growth potential, likely worth more than $25 billion by 2030, according to Goldman Sachs’ estimates in May.
To seize that opportunity, Chinese companies are aggressively expanding overseas and claim they are close to making robotaxis a viable business, rather than simply burning cash to grab market share.
In the last 18 months, Baidu, Pony.ai and WeRide landed partnerships with Uber that allow users of the ride-hailing app to order a robotaxi in specific locations, starting in the Middle East.
Such tie-ups “will be critical to success” as they enable robotaxi companies to operate more efficiently and reach profitability more quickly, said Counterpoint Senior Analyst Murtuza Ali.
Once we can generate profit for every single car in a second-tier city [like Wuhan] in mainland China, we can generate profits in lots of cities across the world.
Halton Niu
General manager for Apollo Go’s overseas business
Expanding on experience at home
Baidu says that since late last year, its Apollo Go robotaxi unit has reached per-vehicle profitability in Wuhan, where the company has operated over 1,000 vehicles in its largest deployment in China.
That means ridership is enough to offset a Wuhan taxi fare that’s 30% cheaper than in Beijing or Shanghai, and far below prices in the U.S. or Europe. Besides developing autonomous driving systems, Baidu has also produced electrically-powered robotaxi vehicles — without relying on a third-party manufacturer — that are 50% cheaper.
“Once we can generate profit for every single car in a second-tier city [like Wuhan] in mainland China, we can generate profits in lots of cities across the world,” Halton Niu, general manager for Apollo Go’s overseas business, told CNBC.
“Scale matters,” he said. “If you only deploy, for example, 100 to 200 cars in a single city, if you only cover a small area of the city, you can never become profitable.”
How U.S. rivals stack up
Scale remains the dividing line. In the U.S., Alphabet-owned Waymo operates more than 2,500 vehicles and is expanding rapidly from major cities in California to Texas and Florida, with plans to enter London next year, following its first overseas venture in Tokyo.
Tesla sells its electric cars in China, and reportedly showed off its Cybercab in Shanghai this month. But it began testing its robotaxis in Texas only in June, and this week obtained a permit to operate in Arizona.
Amazon’s Zoox is also ramping up its expansion in the U.S., but has not released overseas plans.
The three companies have not disclosed plans to break even on their robotaxis.
Baidu Apollo Go’s Niu did not rule out an expansion into the U.S. But for now, the robotaxi operator plans to enter Europe with trials in parts of Switzerland next month, following their expansion in the Middle East this year.
Abu Dhabi last week gave Apollo Go a permit to charge fares to the public for fully driverless robotaxi rides, which are operated locally under the AutoGo brand, eight months after local trials began in parts of the city.
But Chinese startup WeRide said it received a similar permit on Oct. 31 to charge fares for its fully driverless robotaxi rides in Abu Dhabi, and claimed that removing human staff from the cars would allow it to make a profit on each vehicle.
That puts Pony.ai furthest from profitability among the three major Chinese robotaxi operators. Its CFO Leo Haojun Wang told The Wall Street Journal in mid-September that the company aimed to make a profit on each car by the end of this year or early next year.
Pony.ai plans to launch a fully autonomous commercial robotaxi business in Dubai in 2026, after receiving a testing permit in late September. The company plans to roll out in Europe in the coming months and has also outlined an expansion into Singapore.
Pony.ai and WeRide are set to release quarterly earnings early next week.
“Currently, companies like Waymo, Baidu, WeRide and Pony.ai are leading in terms of fleet size, which positions them advantageously in the race for profitability,” said Yuqian Ding, head of China Autos Research at HSBC.
Scale and safety
Fleet size is becoming a competitive marker. Pony.ai reportedly said it plans to release 1,000 robotaxis in the Middle East by 2028, while WeRide aims to operate a fleet of 1,000 robotaxis in the region by the end of next year.
Niu said Apollo Go operates around 100 robotaxis in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and plans to double its vehicle fleet in the next few months.
“Apollo Go has had a head start with significantly more test rides than the other two,” Kai Wang, Asia equity market strategist at Morningstar, said in an email. “The more testing and data you can collect from trips taken, the more likely the AI sensors are able to recognize the objects on the road, which means better safety as well.”
He cautioned that despite some initial progress, the robotaxi race remains uncertain as “no one has truly had mass adoption for their vehicles.”
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Coverage remains limited. Even in China, robotaxis are only allowed to operate in selected zones, though Pony.ai recently became the first to win regulatory approval to operate its robotaxis across all of Shenzhen, dubbed China’s Silicon Valley. In Beijing, self-driving taxis are mostly limited to a suburb called Yizhuang.
Anecdotally, CNBC tests have found Pony.ai offered a smoother ride than Apollo Go, which was prone to hard braking.
As for safety — which is critical for regulatory approval — none of the six operators has reported fatalities or major injuries caused by the robotaxis so far. But Apollo Go and Waymo have begun advertising low airbag deployment rates.
Even if that’s not enough to convince regulators worldwide, Beijing is expected to ramp up support at home.
HSBC’s Ding predicts the number of robotaxis on China’s roads could multiply from a few thousand to tens of thousands between the end of this year and 2026, a shift that would give operators more proof that their model works.
Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., during the US-Saudi Investment Forum at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025.
Stefani Reynolds | Bloomberg | Getty Images
In the weeks leading up to Nvidia’s third-quarter earnings report, investors debated whether the markets were in an AI bubble, fretting over the massive sums being committed to building data centers and whether they could provide a long-term return on investment.
During Wednesday’s earnings call with analysts, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang began his comments by rejecting that premise.
“There’s been a lot of talk about an AI bubble,” Huang said. “From our vantage point we see something very different.”
In many respects, Huang’s remarks are to be expected. He’s leading the company at the heart of the artificial intelligence boom, and has built its market cap to $4.5 trillion because of soaring demand for Nvidia’s graphics processing units.
Huang’s smackdown of bubble talk matters because Nvidia counts every major cloud provider — Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle — as a customer. Most of the major AI model developers, including OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI and Meta, are also big buyers of Nvidia GPUs.
Huang has deep visibility into the market, and on the call he offered a three-pronged argument for why we’re not in a bubble.
First, he said that areas like data processing, ad recommendations, search systems, and engineering, are turning to GPUs because they need the AI. That means older computing infrastructure based around the central processor will transition to new systems running on Nvidia’s chips.
Second, Huang said, AI isn’t just being integrated into current applications, but it will enable entirely new ones.
Finally, according to Huang, “agentic AI,” or applications that can run without significant input from the user, will be able to reason and plan, and will require even more computing power.
In making the case of Nvidia, Huang said it’s the only company that can address the three use cases.
“As you consider infrastructure investments, consider these three fundamental dynamics,” Huang said. “Each will contribute to infrastructure growth in the coming years.”
Reversing the slide
In its earnings release, Nvidia reported revenue and profit that sailed past estimates and issued better-than-expected guidance. Last month, Huang provided a $500 billion forecast for sales of the company’s AI chips over calendar 2025 and 2026.
The company said on Wednesday that its order backlog didn’t even include a few recent deals, like an agreement with Anthropic that was announced this week or the expansion of a deal with Saudi Arabia.
“The number will grow,” CFO Colette Kress said on the call, saying the company was on track to hit the forecast.
Prior to Wednesday’s results, Nvidia shares were down about 8% this month. Other stocks tied to the AI have gotten hit even harder, with CoreWeave plunging 44% in November, Oracle dropping 14% and Palantir falling 17%.
Some of the worry on Wall Street has been tied to the debt that certain companies have used to finance their infrastructure buildouts.
“Our customers’ financing is up to them,” Huang said.
Specific to Nvidia, investors have raised concerns in recent weeks about how much of the company’s sales were going to a small number of hyperscalers.
Last month, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Alphabet all lifted their forecasts for capital expenditures due to their AI buildouts, and now collectively expect to spend more than $380 billion this year.
Huang said that even without a new business model, Nvidia’s chips boost hyperscaler revenue, because they power recommendation systems for short videos, books, and ads.
People will soon start appreciating what’s happening underneath the surface of the AI boom, Huang said, versus “the simplistic view of what’s happening to capex and investment.”
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