European tech CEOs urge 'Europe-first' mentality to counter U.S. dominance after Trump victory

LISBON, Portugal — Tech CEOs successful Europe are urging portion al countries to instrumentality bolder enactment to tackle Big Tech's dominance and antagonistic reliance connected the U.S. for captious technologies similar artificial quality aft Donald Trump's electoral win.

The Republican politician's victory was a cardinal taxable among salient tech bosses astatine the Web Summit league successful Lisbon, Portugal. Many attendants said they're unsure of what to expect from the U.S. president-elect, citing this unpredictability arsenic a halfway situation astatine present.

Andy Yen, CEO of Swiss VPN developer Proton, says Europe should echo American protectionism and follow a much "Europe-first" attack to exertion — successful portion to reverse the inclination of the past 2 decades, during which much of the Western world's astir important technologies, from web browsing to smartphones, person go dominated by a fistful of ample U.S. tech firms.

VPNs, oregon virtual backstage networks, are services that encrypt information and disguise a user's IP code to fell browsing enactment and bypass censorship.

"It's clip for Europe to measurement up," Yen told CNBC connected the sidelines of Web Summit. "It's clip to beryllium bold. It's clip to beryllium much aggressive. And the clip is now, due to the fact that we present person a person successful the U.S. that is 'America-first,' truthful I deliberation our European leaders should beryllium 'Europe-first.'"

One cardinal propulsion for the past decennary from the European Union has been to take legal enactment and introduce tough caller regulations to tackle the dominance of ample exertion players, specified arsenic Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta.

As Trump prepares to travel into powerfulness for a 2nd mandate, concerns person present mounted that Europe mightiness reel successful its pugnacious attack to tech giants retired of fearfulness of retaliation from the caller administration.

Proton's Yen, for one, urged the EU not to h2o down its attempts  to rein successful America's tech giants.

"Europe has been reasoning successful a precise globalist mindset. They're reasoning we request to be fair to everybody, we request to unfastened our marketplace to everybody, we request to play fair, due to the fact that we judge successful fairness," helium told CNBC.

"Well, conjecture what? The Americans and the Chinese didn't get the memo. They person been playing highly unfairly for the past 20 years. And present they person a president that is highly 'America-first.'" 

Mitchell Baker, erstwhile CEO of American unfastened net non-profit Mozilla Foundation, said the EU's DMA has led to meaningful changes for the Firefox browser, with enactment increasing since Google implemented a "choice screen" connected Android phones that enables users to select their search engine.

"The alteration successful Firefox caller users and marketplace stock connected Android is noticeable," Baker said. "That's bully for america — but it's besides an indicator of however overmuch powerfulness and centralized organisation that these companies have."

She added, "This alteration successful usage due to the fact that of 1 prime surface isn't the afloat picture. But it is an indicator of the benignant of things that consumers can't take and that businesses can't physique successfully due to the fact that of the mode the tech manufacture is structured close now."

Thomas Plantenga, CEO of Lithuania-headquartered utilized covering resale app Vinted, urged Europe to instrumentality the "right choices" to guarantee the continent tin "fend for ourselves" and does not get "left behind."

"If you look precise realistically astatine what countries do, they effort to instrumentality attraction of themselves and they effort to signifier coalitions to beryllium stronger themselves, and arsenic a conjugation beryllium stronger," Plantenga told CNBC successful an interview. "We person a batch of precise talented, well-educated people."

Another taxable that attracted overmuch chatter connected the crushed astatine Web Summit was the thought of "AI sovereignty" — which refers to countries and regions localizing critical computing infrastructure down AI services, truthful that these systems go much reflective of regional languages, cultures and values.

With Microsoft becoming a cardinal subordinate successful AI, concerns have surfaced that the shaper of the Windows operating strategy and Office productivity tools suite has secured a ascendant presumption erstwhile it comes to foundational AI tools.

The tech elephantine is simply a cardinal backer down ChatGPT shaper OpenAI, whose exertion it besides heavily uses in its ain products.

For immoderate startups, Microsoft's decision to embrace AI has resulted successful harmful, anti-competitive effects.

Last year, Microsoft hiked the fees it charges hunt engines to use its Bing Search APIs, which let developers entree to the tech giant's backend hunt infrastructure — successful portion due to the fact that of higher costs attached to its AI-powered hunt features.

"They're gradually reducing our gross — we're inactive relying connected them — and that reduces our capableness to bash things," Christian Kroll, CEO of sustainability-focused hunt motor Ecosia, told CNBC. "Microsoft is simply a precise fierce competitor."

CNBC has reached retired to Microsoft for comment.

Ecosia precocious partnered with chap hunt supplier Qwant to build a European hunt index and reduce dependence connected U.S. Big Tech to deliver web browsing results.

Meanwhile, the European Union's AI Act, a landmark artificial quality instrumentality with planetary implications, introduces caller transparency requirements and restrictions connected companies processing and utilizing AI.

The laws are apt to person a large interaction connected predominantly U.S. tech firms, since they're the ones doing overmuch of the development of — and concern successful — AI.

With Trump acceptable to travel into power, it's unclear what that could mean for the planetary AI regulatory landscape.

Shelley McKinley, main ineligible serviceman of code repository platform GitHub, said she can't predict what Trump will do in his 2nd term — but that businesses are readying for a scope of antithetic scenarios successful the meantime.

"We volition larn successful the adjacent fewer months what President-elect Trump volition say, and successful January we volition commencement seeing immoderate of what President Trump does successful this area," McKinley said during a CNBC-moderated sheet earlier this week.

"I bash deliberation it is important that we all, arsenic society, arsenic businesses, arsenic people, proceed to deliberation astir the antithetic scenarios," she added. "I think, arsenic with immoderate governmental change, arsenic with immoderate satellite change, we're inactive each reasoning astir what are each of the scenarios we mightiness operate."