We both know that's not gonna happen. Europe is way too entrenched in its ways by this point. The good ol' glory days that brought in Airbus and Concorde are gone and not transferrable to the modern, dynamic and very internationally competitive SW world, nor are its leaders strong and motivated enough to enact policy changes that favor disruption of the old money guard at the expense of the status quo. Case in point we have no SW giants, no Airbus equivalent of the SW world. All Europe's giants are decades to centuries old. 20 years ago EU's GDP was on par with the US's, now we're only half the US's GDP. We're cooked.

Plus, we first have to prioritize solving more urgent and important topics like affordable housing (WHEN?!), the collapsing pension and welfare systems which is a ticking timebomb, cheap energy, collapsing demographic (see affordable housing), illegal immigration, Putin's war next door, the rise of the right wing (see illegal immigration) before jumping into another pissing contest with the US and China on something that's not gonna help fix the pressing issues we have right fucking now. I don't see how we can recover from this downward spiral when I look at the inactions of our politicians who are just kicking the can down the road and blaming the EU and other countries of the union for their own systemic failures.

Winning the AI race might sound cool but it might also be similar to winning the race to the moon: a cool flex but not super useful to the general population if they can't afford a place to live or getting healthcare in a timely manner. Until ChatGPT can wipe your retired old ass in a care home I doubt many people will see AI investments as being a top priority.