The article only lists US labs, I wonder if that was an oversight. Chinese models are also available to Europeans through API providers. Surely they risk fines too.. right?
I doubt it’s the end of AI access in Europe. Even if they do fine them 3% of global turnover, that’s probably a small enough fraction of their European revenue that it’s worth the risk. After all if they drop European traffic it’s not like it’ll change their fixed costs, and the marginal cost to serve Europe is probably relatively small compared to their fixed costs.
I do think it’s most likely that they will end up fining the AI companies quite a bit under this act. It seems like a bit of a pattern with European legislation that disproportionately impacts American tech companies.
I really oppose the notion that “European legislation … disproportionately impacts American tech companies”. US tech has a profound impact on the lives of everyday Europeans while the US has almost no checks and balances in place for the tech industry. Europeans are ought to be able decide how they want to live their lives and build a society. This must include deciding how much influence American tech companies shall be allowed to have by passing laws for Europe.
The whole premise ignores how much the same companies are fined and settling for in the US, for many of the same reasons: privacy abuse, market abuse, societal abuse, worker abuse, etc. Pound for pound the recent Meta settlement has certainly skewed the numbers much higher for the US too.
Perhaps the fines themselves act as a de facto AI tax that some people have been trying to promote in the political sphere, and we'll see how successful it is.
It's a (successful?) lobbying attempt by Mistral. They are falling behind on tech and they want to win on another stupid EU law. You know what will happen next? There will be an exception carved in for "developing countries" ... like China.
Why would they, both the EU and Mistral specifically, want Chinese models? Isn't the (de facto, underlying) point of the act to raise up homegrown companies like Mistral?
It’s how conspiracy theories work: find out who could theoretically profit, blame them and spread it as fact. It doesn’t have to stand up to scrutiny, if it sounds plausible “you told them like it is”.
That doesn't make any sense because Mistral wouldn't profit if Chinese models are allowed so not sure why the person above thinks the EU would add a China exemption.
The Chinese models are open weights, so they can host & finetune them in the EU. Mistral is calling them "European Compute Units". Mistral has pivoted to become a hosting provider of open weight LLMs.
"Mistral’s platform will support third-party open models, starting with Z.ai’s GLM-5.2. This and future open models will run on the same infrastructure, regional controls, and service commitments as Mistral models, so customers can broaden model choice without fragmenting where their AI runs."
"European Compute Units, or ECUs, convert those commitments into access to Mistral-built infrastructure over multiple years."
Claude slop article aside, this act is one reason why some people say Europe is an open air museum, as it'd rather regulate itself to obscurity while its great works are behind it. Where is Mistral, Le Chaton Fat? They're not competitive anymore. Meanwhile China reaches ever forward because they know that speed and endurance is everything in a race, not shooting oneself in the foot.
The key problem for Europe is that they don't want to take strong enough actions against US tech to let their own actors develop. Which is how China has reached tech dominance, and how even a shithole country like Russia can have their own “tech” industry.
You’ll get downvoted to oblivion but it’s true in endless ways even before AI. The EUs obsession with green energy and destroying nuclear in Germany, the wealth taxes, the bureaucracy, how it’s 10x easier to get disability than it is to start a corporation. Death by a thousand cuts. I don’t see this improving until real, visible pain is felt. They are so poor economically but the consequences are not being felt yet
Just my 2 cents. Nuclear was dead in Germany without political influence. The reactors where so old, that upgrading them to modern standard would have been a waste of money compared to renewables. France only works because the state helps out. UKs new reactors are financial suicide.
Everything else you might have a point. The EU behaves as if it has influence over companies abroad. Then its strategy might work and do some good. Sadly this is not the case. Instead we are getting isolated and loosing the AI battle bad while bureaucracy and regulations forces inventors to leave.
And it's not even just me who says this, this is an exact title I've seen online as well before, below.
The reality is Europe will tend towards stagnation while other superpowers continue trudging on, some with their help of their governments while others, even despite themselves and their governments.
The proof is in the pudding. On a pure price-return basis without dividends, an investment in the Euro Stoxx 50 in 2000 sat at approximately 0% capital growth for nearly 25 years.
I do think it’s most likely that they will end up fining the AI companies quite a bit under this act. It seems like a bit of a pattern with European legislation that disproportionately impacts American tech companies.
But conspiracy theory don't have to make sense in the first place.
"Mistral’s platform will support third-party open models, starting with Z.ai’s GLM-5.2. This and future open models will run on the same infrastructure, regional controls, and service commitments as Mistral models, so customers can broaden model choice without fragmenting where their AI runs."
"European Compute Units, or ECUs, convert those commitments into access to Mistral-built infrastructure over multiple years."
https://mistral.ai/news/regional-inference-open-models-new-c...
Everything else you might have a point. The EU behaves as if it has influence over companies abroad. Then its strategy might work and do some good. Sadly this is not the case. Instead we are getting isolated and loosing the AI battle bad while bureaucracy and regulations forces inventors to leave.
The reality is Europe will tend towards stagnation while other superpowers continue trudging on, some with their help of their governments while others, even despite themselves and their governments.
https://www.trouw.nl/opinie/wil-europa-geen-openluchtmuseum-...
https://www.theprincetontory.com/is-europe-an-open-air-museu...
https://www.investmentofficer.lu/en/columns/gregory-kennedy/...