This Week in European Tech: Anthropic’s rise, China’s AI push and Europe’s tech dilemma

This week in European Tech explores the explosive growth of Anthropic, the strategic implications of AI as national infrastructure, and Europe's evolving tech policy challenges. The episode opens with a deep dive into the shifting AI hardware landscape, where the rise of agentic workflows is driving a dramatic increase in CPU demand—potentially reversing the long-standing one-to-eight CPU-to-GPU ratio. Arm's pivot from licensing to chip manufacturing is highlighted as a bold, high-stakes bet that's already creating supply chain bottlenecks but could dominate the 2030 market. Anthropic's meteoric rise is front and center, with $45 billion in ARR, a $50 billion funding round, and a $200 billion Google Cloud deal—positioning it as a potential $300 billion revenue giant. The discussion turns to the strategic convergence of AI, private equity, and enterprise implementation, as Anthropic and OpenAI launch joint ventures with Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, and TPG to embed AI in corporations—effectively creating a new, high-margin services layer. On the regulatory front, the U.S. is moving toward AI safety oversight under Trump, with a proposed FDA-like pre-deployment review, raising concerns about regulatory capture. Meanwhile, the EU is preparing to force Meta to open WhatsApp to third-party AI models, marking a pivotal moment in platform competition. ASML’s CEO claims no one can challenge their EUV lithography dominance, but experts caution that China’s system-level workarounds could close the gap. The episode closes with the UK’s new Fusion Consortium, backed by Bill Gates, as a bold but risky bet on energy independence, underscoring Europe’s broader strategic underinvestment in critical technologies. The deal of the week: SAP’s $1 billion acquisition of Prior Labs, a German startup building tabular foundation models for enterprise data. Key takeaways include: 1) AI is no longer just software—it’s strategic infrastructure requiring national-level attention; 2) The CPU market is poised for explosive growth due to agentic AI workloads; 3) Anthropic’s rise is not just about tech, but about narrative, safety positioning, and private market dominance; 4) The EU’s push to open WhatsApp to third-party AI models could redefine platform competition; 5) Europe’s long-term competitiveness hinges on bold, coordinated investment in foundational tech like fusion and AI; 6) The U.S. and EU are diverging on AI regulation—safety vs. market freedom; 7) Private equity is becoming a key enabler of AI adoption, creating new revenue models; 8) China’s strategic imperative is closing the gap, not through chips alone, but through systemic innovation and workarounds.