{"id":345768,"date":"2025-08-15T05:44:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T05:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/345768\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T05:44:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T05:44:11","slug":"one-ai-companys-battle-against-europes-tech-roadblocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/345768\/","title":{"rendered":"One AI company’s battle against Europe’s tech roadblocks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nGermany’s Seedbox.AI is, in many ways, a company made to win the hearts of EU lawmakers: Relatively young, doing business with established players and, most importantly, developing artificial intelligence.<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\nCo-founder Kai K\u00f6lsch tells Euractiv the company has been in the AI business since before US giant OpenAI launched its viral AI chatbot ChatGPT in 2022 \u2013 back when the technology was still simply called ‘machine learning’.\n<\/p>\n

\nNow, like many other players in the AI field, Seedbox re-trains large language models (LLMs) developed by other companies \u2013 such as Google\u2019s Gemini or Meta\u2019s Llama \u2013 for its specific uses, for example a chatbot where patients can ask questions about their medication or an AI assistant for real estate appraisals.\n<\/p>\n

\nThis is where 38-year-old K\u00f6lsch sees Europe\u2019s big chance: piggybacking on LLMs, rather than trying to clone them. \u201cWe want to drive the [AI] field forward, take part in developing technology that makes technology more efficient,\u201d he says.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Stuttgart native, still living in Germany\u2019s automotive capital, likens the situation to a car that’s already on the road. Europe’s tech field shouldn’t be trying to reinvent the wheel, he suggests, but rather should focus its energy on improving the quality and efficiency of the drive.\n<\/p>\n

\nOf course, there are still bumps in the road for achieving this vision.\n<\/p>\n

\nGood projects for more hardware<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe first big problem for Europe’s AI companies is that they do not have the same access to computing infrastructure as the US giants. K\u00f6lsch also says it would be good to have access to more of the coveted specialised chips needed for AI work \u2013 either for training or for running models.\n<\/p>\n

\nFor Seedbox, there’s a potential solution: The EU is currently building one of its AI factories in Stuttgart, designed to link startups and established industry players with the hardware to integrate AI into their offerings.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe company is already cooperating with the computing centre where the factory is being set up, which allows it to train an AI model in all 24 official EU languages. But the new specialised chips will extend the possibilities, says K\u00f6lsch.\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd while he welcomes plans for far larger gigafactories also planned in the EU, K\u00f6lsch argues that these should be concentrated as tightly as possible to be useful for training new foundational models, in the vein of Google’s Gemini or Meta’s Llama.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Commission already split up the original \u201cAI CERN\u201d idea into five separate gigafactories, which governments and companies are now debating to divide up even further.\n<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

\nDial down the rules<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\nK\u00f6lsch also has his doubts about EU regulation, specifically the AI Act.\n<\/p>\n

\nHe\u2019d like to see it delayed because of the effect he reckons it\u2019s having on established companies. \u201cThey would rather do nothing than do something wrong,\u201d he says. \u201cDoing nothing is the worst thing you can do right now.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe past months have seen several calls to delay European AI rules, with a parallel discussion about whether, and how much, they should be watered down as part of the Commission\u2019s ongoing digital simplification drive.\n<\/p>\n

\nWhile the EU executive was late in delivering key supporting documents for the AI Act \u2013 and some detail is still missing \u2013 most countries are also delayed in announcing which authorities will be responsible for implementing the Act in their territory, amplifying the legal uncertainty.<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThat\u2019s where we need really clear signals\u201d, K\u00f6lsch says. \u201cLike, you won\u2019t be flogged and thrown into jail if you mess up. You just have to start now.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe bloc’s data protection law, also often singled out by critics for blocking European companies, is also set to be \u2013 at least in part \u2013 simplified.\n<\/p>\n

\nMoney, money, money<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\nBut K\u00f6lsch highlights one particular issue as central to Europe\u2019s problems: \u201cAt the end of the day, the key point is capital,\u201d he tells Euractiv.\n<\/p>\n

\nThere is a vast gulf between the sums of money pumped into tech in Europe vs in the US, even though the two economies are broadly comparable in size.\n<\/p>\n

\nKey to this is venture capital for young and innovative tech companies. Such investments are higher risk but also have enormous growth potential. According to numbers from the European Investment Bank<\/a>, US companies receive six to eight times more venture capital investments than European startups.\n<\/p>\n

\nThere are many, often-reported, reasons for the lack of cash. To pick just two: There are rules preventing big institutional investors like pension funds from putting money into venture because of the inherent risks. What’s more, the bloc is not a single financial sector, it’s 27 small ones, which don\u2019t work well enough in funnelling cash to promising start-ups.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt’s absurd that we want to finance Europe and at the same time European pension funds are investing in US bonds\u201d, says Andreas Schwarzenbrunner from Speedinvest, an EU venture fund.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe money is there, Europe is still very rich\u201d, he continues \u2013 \u201cit’s simply invested in the wrong channels.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nSchwarzenbrunner is quick to point out that Europe has made significant progress after realising it missed the boat for thirty years. There is now a working ecosystem for financing young companies. Still, European tech companies face big problems in accessing financing \u2013 both for building prototypes and then, once they have proven the tech, for expanding, optimally across the EU.\n<\/p>\n

\nEven if they manage to do so, US Big Tech is lurking with many billions in cash which they will gladly use to snap up (and close down) promising start-ups.\n<\/p>\n

\nK\u00f6lsch says that Seedbox.AI is already being courted by non-European companies like AMD and Nvidia while European ones are failing to keep up with the speed of technical innovation.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNo company in Germany… really understands what we do\u201d, he says. \u201cWho understands us is the Americans.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nTalent follows money<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\nThis connects to another problem that EU and national governments have wrestled with for years: talent.\n<\/p>\n

\nSeedbox.AI currently has 15 employees and is recruiting a new AI engineer \u2013 as are other European companies, with many struggling to find staff.\n<\/p>\n

\nTo boost the potential workforce, the EU made 2023 a ‘Year of skills’, with a strategy on a \u201cUnion of Skills\u201d that aimed for one in three university students to enrol in STEM degrees by 2030 \u2013 which are foundational for AI development.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBy offering world-class education and research infrastructure, competitive career prospects, and a supportive regulatory and funding environment, the EU can become a destination of choice for the brightest minds,\u201d the skills strategy reads.\n<\/p>\n

\nBut it’s hard to compete when Big Tech is dangling eye-watering salaries to reel in AI talent. Top researchers have reportedly<\/a> been offered first-year pay packages of more than \u20ac100 million to join Meta.\n<\/p>\n

\nMeanwhile, the word \u201csalary\u201d does not appear in the EU’s Union of Skills strategy.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe can\u2019t allow ourselves to complain that we can\u2019t educate talent,\u201d says K\u00f6lsch. \u201cTalent just goes to where the capital is.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

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