Brendan McDermid/REUTERS
At an investment forum in Riyadh, Alex Karp, CEO of defense tech company Palantir Technologies, praised Saudi engineers for meritocracy and patriotism — and took a swipe at Europe over its slow AI adoption.
“You’re seeing a receptivity in this region, especially in the kingdom,” Karp said at the Saudi-US Investment Forum on Tuesday. “But the receptivity is on the back of people who have a deep tradition in engineering excellence and, quite frankly, believe in their own future.”
Karp was addressing a request from panel host and CNBC anchor Sara Eisen to expand upon a previous comment that the countries and regions that are best utilizing AI right now are the US and the Middle East.
“Obviously, the great contradistinction here is Europe, where, you know, it’s like people have given up, and we — I really hope that turns around in Europe,” he added.
The talk came as President Donald Trump received a royal welcome with golden chairs and Arabian horses in Riyadh on Tuesday as he kicked off his Gulf tour. Flanked by executives from Google, Nvidia, BlackRock, and others to discuss AI, defense, and energy with Saudi officials, Trump said he aims to secure $1 trillion in deals.
Based on an October 2024 report published by QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, European organizations lag behind their US counterparts by 45 to 70% in terms of AI adoption. And while Europe leads in producing AI semiconductor equipment — machinery and tools used to make semiconductors — the report said that Europe has below 5% market share in areas like raw materials, cloud infrastructure, and supercomputers.
“Opportunity remains wide open, but Europe is starting from a disadvantage,” the report QuantumBlack wrote.
Europe is also known for much more stringent AI regulations. On August 1, 2024, Europe enacted the AI Act, the first-ever legal framework on AI, and established an AI office to oversee the implementation of these regulations.
The AI Act is just one part of a wider package of measures that the EU said ensures “trustworthy AI,” which explicitly banned practices such as AI-based manipulation and deception, real-time remote biometric identification for law enforcement purposes in public spaces, and individual criminal offense risk assessment.
According to the AI Act, ways of using AI, such as robot-assisted surgery and credit scoring, are also categorized as “high-risk” and subjected to strict scrutiny.
The best-known European AI company that raised the most amount of funds is French AI startup Mistral, which is backed by over €1 billion in funding. Dubbed as Europe’s answer to OpenAI, the company has recently ruled out acquisition and is eyeing an IPO while pushing its open-source AI models and generative chatbot “Le Chat” into new markets.
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