Dutch technology leaders: Europe may not take the lead in AI hardware, but it can excel in AI applications.

      The competition to lead in AI infrastructure has left Europe behind the US, but the continent still has the potential for global leadership in AI applications. This was the conclusion drawn by Dutch tech leaders at the Assembly, a private policy track during the TNW Conference in Amsterdam.

      While Silicon Valley holds sway over AI infrastructure, they urged Europe to concentrate on developing applications on top of that framework. Leading this call was Jeroen van Glabbeek, CEO and founder of CM.com, a customer engagement platform with a market capitalization of about €217 million and projected annual revenues of €274 million for 2024.

      Van Glabbeek believes that the US's strength in AI infrastructure could serve as a launching pad for European software development, stating, “The infrastructure is already there." This infrastructure is being created with unprecedented levels of investment. In 2025, Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft are expected to collectively spend over $300 billion (€261 billion) on data centers, networking, and cloud services for AI, according to CNBC. He described this as “the biggest investment in technology in the history of mankind.”

      While European tech firms cannot compete with this scale of hardware investment, they can leverage the infrastructure established in the US to develop AI applications. Europe already has a strong history of producing high-quality applications, including Spotify, Grammarly, Revolut, and Klarna. Van Glabbeek is optimistic about a new wave of applications emerging from Europe in the AI era. "We won’t win the hyperscaler AI platform competition, but there’s still a positive opportunity to pursue — and it’s on the application side," he remarked.

      This sentiment was shared by other tech leaders at the event. Sohrab Hosseini, co-founder of the Amsterdam-based generative AI startup Orq.ai, emphasized the opportunities present at the “orchestration and application levels,” while Lucien Burm, President of the Dutch Startup Association, pointed out where the profit potential lies. “The money is likely to be made in the application layer,” he noted. “We’re not going to gain much in extremely advanced AI hardware technology.”

      To realize Europe’s AI potential, the speakers advocated for three financial changes: a greater risk appetite among investors, less bureaucratic hurdles surrounding public funding, and increased local procurement. However, their most urgent request resonates throughout the continent’s tech sector: regulation that fosters innovation.