IVA Business Executives Council| Summer Session 2026

Europe is accelerating AI adoption under intense competitive pressure.

Companies are integrating existing platforms, models and infrastructure to increase speed, productivity and competitiveness. At company level, these are rational decisions. At system level, they may gradually reduce Europe’s future room for manoeuvre.

AI is often discussed in terms of capability. Far less attention is paid to how control is structured, accumulated and exercised in practice, through platforms, compute, industrial integration, capital and execution capacity. This is where the conditions for competitiveness, economic influence and long-term prosperity are increasingly being shaped.

The global development of AI is not converging on a single model.

The United States builds through capital, platforms and scale. China integrates AI across industry and state with coordination and execution speed. In countries such as South Korea, a different approach is emerging, where strategic integration creates influence without full-stack control.

This Summer Session brings together leaders from industry, academia, capital and policy to discuss Europe’s position in practice. Not as a question of catching up, but of deciding where control matters, where dependency is acceptable, and what Europe must realistically prioritise, coordinate and build to preserve future optionality under growing technological dependency.