At TechBBQ in Copenhagen, Europe's tech leaders debate who controls AI
At the TechBBQ conference in Copenhagen, industry figures discussed Europe's reliance on U.S. and Chinese AI infrastructure, a topic sharpened by Anthropic's earlier outage of its models outside Europe.
At this year's TechBBQ conference in Copenhagen, an annual gathering of Nordic investors, founders, and tech operators, conversations repeatedly returned to a single question: who should actually control artificial intelligence technology. The event's theme, "Emerging from Agency," aligned closely with growing talk of European tech sovereignty, a topic made more urgent after Anthropic's AI models Mythos and Fable became temporarily unavailable to users outside Europe earlier this year.
That incident pushed many in Europe's tech ecosystem to think harder about owning AI models and infrastructure rather than depending on computing power supplied by the U.S. and China. One startup executive said the disruption seriously affected his software team, while another was less concerned, acknowledging that reliance on two other geopolitical powers could eventually cause problems, though for now things remain manageable.
Sovereignty and human judgment
Ellen de Brever, an angel investor and head of partnerships at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Cellerator, said this year's discussions shifted away from what AI can do toward what humans are actually willing to delegate to it. Signal President Meredith Whittaker, speaking on a panel about privacy and AI, criticized the integration of AI assistants into operating systems and argued the industry is building a large-scale data collection apparatus, while insisting demand for privacy-focused alternatives remains strong.
Stability AI and Intelligent Internet co-founder Emad Mostaque described sovereignty as the ability to resist outside power, warning about the concentration of control among a small number of AI labs. Mia Negru of the nonprofit Life With Artificials added that as intelligent agents take on cognitive work and robots take on physical labor, society may need to rethink ownership, employment, and democratic participation.
Outside the formal panels, attendees mixed at rooftop parties and a dinner on a Copenhagen island, discussing Denmark's growing tech hubs and innovation in women's health, among other lighter topics. The conference concluded on August 27.
