In a study on 'Artificial Intelligence Diplomacy: Artificial intelligence governance as a new European Union external policy tool’, approach and impact of the EU’s geopolitical power and its relations with other countries were analysed. World nations like the US, Russia, China etc., have understood and accepted the power of AI in all spheres including defence. However, the approach of the EU is quite different in this area. According to a report, only 11% of Europeans consider the risk from the technologies as one of the major challenges of the future.

Even though the EU consider itself as a ‘global digital player’, it does not want to involve in the mighty power play associated with AI. But the real question that the study poses is will the European Union be able to stand away from the geopolitical power struggle for AI.

AI Capabilities of Europe:

AI capabilities of Europe according to the study on AI diplomacy, can be understood by European AI input and output. According to a 2020 Survey, it was found that "between one and three per cent of EU companies with ten employees or more say they use AI such as machine learning, natural language processing, or speech recognition (financial sector not counted)”. 

When considering Inputs, the study states that Europe faces challenges on data collection. Compared to their colleagues, due to the small size of the EU, European AI developers has relatively limited access to data. EU has a good talent pool. However retaining the talent it educates, with their researchers leaving the country especially to the US has been one of the biggest challenges that the EU has been facing. Lack of funding is yet another setback in this area. This is why AI developer Cédric Villani recommends "hefty salary top-ups" in the French AI strategy. Also, Europe largely depends on foreign chipmakers for maintaining good hardware. The global market share of the EU’s semiconductor industry was around 10%.

AI strategies in Europe:

AI has a huge impact on geopolitics and the global balance of power. The competition between the AI super-powers US and China has widely impacted Europe. Weakening of democracy, the rise of AI nationalism and empowering the private sector has affected the geopolitical implications of AI. The advent of AI in the field of defence has resulted in a “revolution in military affairs”. Around 2018 attempting to understand what to make on the groundbreaking development in AI, Coordinated Plan on Artificial Intelligence, an EU commission, asked the member states to develop their own national AI plans for the future, to frame the challenges politically and address them on a domestic level. By May 2021, 21 member states in the European Union published their strategies. Each plan of action was unique in terms of length, language and number of publications. As varied as it sounds, all the schemes seemed to be ambitious. Moreover, they discussed predominantly economical terms such as AI development, its adoption and principles since the lion’s share were designed under the economics ministry and its branches. 

Apart from encouraging AI in private sector enterprises, certain steps initiated by the EU pave the way for alliance building among the member states. From the intention of making data collection for common good to imposing an openness for setting up a National Data Institute are substantial steps for this. However, one of the major setbacks was that the EU countries failed to address the role of AI in defence. In a growing world of power politics, it would be extremely difficult for the European Union to survive without valuing it. Being a wealthy member of the world nations, European countries need to face the reality that AI is going to influence the balance of power.

AI Diplomacy in Europe:

Despite the bad press and the other issues faced by the EU, the country is well placed to support research and development of AI as well as in the adoption of AI-enabled systems. Considering the internal and external issues faced by the EU in AI capabilities, technology policies requires a ‘whole-of-government- approach. Challenges need to be addressed on a national level and the internal issues should be a matter of discussion. A lot of US analysis applies to Europe and therefore it should be taken into account from a European viewpoint. It will help the EU fight the problems it faces with the dominance of US research.