BRUSSELS – A new narrative is gaining traction across Europe: the continent can rebuild its technological power by leveraging its longstanding advantages in mechanics, automation, and engineering. Combined with its deep-rooted open-source tradition and next-generation artificial intelligence (AI )models, these assets could make Europe an industrial AI superpower. While this vision is promising, can it really reverse Europe’s slide toward technological decline? Such a strategy calls for the development of a distinct AI paradigm centered on smaller, specialized models, distributed approaches, open-source collaboration, and high-quality industrial data. A recent report estimates that Germany alone could unlock 1.7 trillion euroes ($2 trillion) in untapped high-tech potential by 2030. It is encouraging to see Europe’s pessimism about its place in the global AI race give way to renewed confidence. Drawing on its domain expertise, world-class university research, and open-source tools that enable interoperability and collaboration, the European Union hopes to become a global leader in