TechPolicy.Press: What Von der Leyen’s State of the Union Means for Europe’s Tech Ambitions (Dr. Nicole Lemke)

In an analysis of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's State of the Union address by TechPolicy.Press, Dr. Nicole Lemke, Senior Policy Researcher AI, noted that inviting major frontier labs to discuss pacing signals Europe's intention to position itself as a key governance actor on frontier AI risks. However, Dr. Lemke cautioned that expertise at the frontier compounds across capabilities, talent, and evaluation systems. She emphasized that while Europe does not need to win the frontier scaling race, it must maintain sufficient technical depth in models and hardware to sustain its long-term applied AI advantages.