Europe risks being left on the margins of the global debate over artificial intelligence safety, critics warn, as the continent lacks the frontier AI companies — such as OpenAI, Anthropic, or Nvidia — needed to command influence alongside the United States and China. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and former EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager have both called for Europe to build its own AI infrastructure and datacentres to reduce dependency on US technology, while the EU AI Act (a landmark law setting safety and transparency requirements for high-risk AI systems) remains limited in its global reach. Analysts caution that without strategic investment in homegrown AI, Europe faces a future in which its economy and public institutions run on technology controlled by a handful of American corporations, posing a serious threat to the continent's digital sovereignty.