This Week in European Tech: Europe’s AI wake-up call

Europe’s AI position is being tested from every direction: Chinese open-weight models are gaining usage, Nvidia could become even more central to the stack and Europe still has gaps across power, chips, data centres and model capacity.In the latest episode of This Week in European Tech, Mads Jensen and Dan Bowyer of SuperSeed are joined by Lomax Ward of Outsized Ventures to discuss the AI power shift between China, the US and Europe.They also cover UK pension capital moving into venture, whether today’s AI market looks like 1999, Anthropic and OpenAI’s IPO pressure, model commoditisation and where Europe may still have an edge.HighlightsWhy China’s AI model usage is becoming harder to ignoreWhat Chinese model restrictions could mean for EuropeEurope’s AI infrastructure gap across power, chips, data centres and modelsWhether UK pension capital is finally moving into ventureWhy today’s AI market both does and does not look like 1999Where Europe may still have a real opportunity in AI—————Love Tomorrow Summit - July 23, 2026, Tomorrowland, BelgiumThe Impact Circle Investor Lounge - July 24, 2026EUVC is curating the investment stage.Register here.—————Timestamps(01:45) Introduction(03:25) Quick news roundup(05:30) Tesla, SpaceX, Samsung and the week’s market signals(08:00) The UK’s fiscal outlook and the OBR warning(11:10) Government oversight of frontier AI releases(12:00) China’s rise in AI model usage(14:30) Could Nvidia benefit if China restricts model access?(17:00) Europe’s exposure across the AI infrastructure stack(19:15) OpenAI, Anthropic and the pressure to IPO(22:45) UK pension capital starts moving into venture(25:00) Why pension investment matters for the UK ecosystem(28:00) Where pension capital should be deployed(30:00) Incentives, coercion and the role of government(32:45) Is today’s AI market another 1999?(40:30) The case against the dot-com comparison(46:30) AI Corner: Anthropic’s Fable and Sonnet strategy(48:30) Lisbon’s earthquake history and engineering response(54:15) Lisbon’s tech ecosystem(56:30) Europe’s opportunity, deals of the week and what to watch next