European tech CEOs urge 'Europe first' mentality after Trump win

LISBON, PORTUGAL — Europe's technology CEOs are urging countries in the region to take bolder action to address the dominance of Big Tech companies and counter-reliance on the United States in critical technologies such as artificial intelligence following Donald Trump's electoral victory.

The Republican politician's victory was a major topic among prominent tech heads at the Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal. Many attendees said they were unsure what to expect from the US president-elect, citing unpredictability as a key challenge today.

Andy Yen, CEO of Swiss VPN developer Proton, says Europe should emulate US protectionism and adopt a “Europe first” approach to technology – partly to reverse the trend of the past two decades, which saw much of the Western world's most important technologies become web browsing. To smartphones, it is dominated by a handful of large American technology companies.

VPNs, or virtual private networks, are services that encrypt data and hide a user's IP address to hide browsing activity and bypass censorship.

“It is time for Europe to step up its efforts,” Yen told CNBC on the sidelines of the Web Summit. “It's time to be bold. It's time to be more aggressive. It's time that we now have a leader in the United States who puts 'America first,' so I think our European leaders must be 'Europe first.'”

One of the major steps taken by the European Union over the past decade has been to take legal action and introduce tough new regulations to address the dominance of large technology companies, such as Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta.

As Trump prepares to take power for a second term, fears are now growing that Europe may falter in its tough approach towards tech giants for fear of retaliation from the new administration.

For example, Yen Broughton urged the European Union not to relax its attempts to rein in America's tech giants.

“Europe is very globalist,” he told CNBC. “They think we need to be fair to everyone, we need to open our market to everyone, we need to play fair, because we believe in fairness.”

“Well, guess what? The Americans and the Chinese didn't get the memo. They've been playing it very unfairly for the last 20 years. And now they have a very 'America First' president.”

Mitchell Baker, former CEO of the US non-profit Mozilla Foundation for the Open Internet, said the EU's Direct Access Agreement (DMA) had led to meaningful changes for Firefox, with increased activity since Google implemented a “choice screen” on Android phones that enables users to select… Their research. engine.

“The change in new Firefox users and market share on Android is notable,” Baker said. “That's good for us – but it's also an indicator of how powerful and centrally distributed these companies are.”

She added: “This change in usage due to the single choice screen does not represent the whole picture. But it is indicative of the kind of things that consumers cannot choose and that companies cannot successfully build because of the way technology has now regulated the industry.”

Thomas Plantinga, CEO of Lithuania-based used clothing resale app Vinted, urged Europe to make the “right choices” to ensure the continent can “stand up for itself” and not be “left behind.”

“If you look very realistically at what countries are doing, they are trying to take care of themselves and trying to form alliances to be stronger, and as an alliance you are stronger,” Plantinga said in an interview with CNBC. “We have a lot of talented, well-educated people.”

“We need (to) make sure that we can take care of our safety, that we can take care of our energy, and ensure that we continue to invest in our education and innovation so that we can keep up with the rest (of) the world,” he stressed. “If we don't, we will fall behind. In every cooperation, trade is always trade. If we don't have much to trade, we become weaker.”

Another topic that attracted a lot of on-the-ground talk at Web Summit was the idea of ​​“AI sovereignty” — which refers to countries and regions working to localize the critical computing infrastructure behind AI services, so that these systems become more reflective of regional languages, cultures, and values. .

As Microsoft becomes a major player in AI, concerns have emerged that the maker of the Windows operating system and the Office productivity suite has acquired a dominant position when it comes to core AI tools.

The tech giant is a major backer of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which also uses its technology heavily in its own products.

For some startups, Microsoft's decision to embrace AI has resulted in adverse and anti-competitive effects.

Last year, Microsoft raised the fees it charges search engines for using its Bing Search APIs, which allow developers access to the tech giant's back-end search infrastructure — partly due to the higher costs associated with its AI-powered search features.

“They're gradually reducing our revenues — we're still dependent on them — and that's reducing our ability to do things,” Christian Kroll, CEO of sustainability-focused search engine Ecosia, told CNBC. “Microsoft is a very aggressive competitor.”

CNBC has reached out to Microsoft for comment.

Ecosia recently partnered with fellow search provider Qwant to create a European search index and reduce reliance on big US tech companies to provide web browsing results.

Meanwhile, the EU AI Act, a landmark AI law with global implications, introduces new transparency requirements and restrictions on companies developing and using AI.

These laws are likely to have a major impact on mostly American technology companies, because they are the ones doing much of the development and investment in artificial intelligence.

As Trump approaches power, it is not clear what this might mean for the global AI regulatory landscape.

Shelley McKinley, chief legal officer at code repository platform GitHub, said she can't predict what Trump will do in his second term, but companies are planning for a range of different scenarios in the meantime.

“We're going to learn in the next few months what President-elect Trump has to say, and in January we'll start to see some of what President Trump does in that area,” McKinley said during a panel moderated by CNBC earlier this week.

“I think it's important that we all, as a society, as businesses, as people, continue to think about different scenarios,” she added. “I think, as with any political change, as with any global change, we're all still thinking about all the scenarios that we might be dealing with.”