--- title: "Europe 2031" url: https://stacklist.com/card/aa6c0322-ebcb-4bdf-8645-8e911b90e96a source_url: "https://europe2031.ai/" stack: https://stacklist.com/stack/5d8cc977-ef65-41d4-b39f-7509ea94663a summary: "Europe 2031 explores the tension between European policymakers' optimism about DeepSeek's efficient AI model and the reality of continued American technological dominance through companies like OpenAI. Through the perspective of Caroline Dubois, a European Commission official, the narrative examines Europe's struggle to compete in the global AI race despite recent efficiency breakthroughs." tags: "ai-competition, europe-tech, deepseek, silicon-valley, digital-policy, geopolitics, innovation" key_entities: "Caroline Dubois (person), Christian Vogt (person), DeepSeek (organization), European Commission (organization), DG TRADE (organization), OpenAI (organization), Anthropic (organization), R1 (technology), ChatGPT (technology), Claude (technology), o3-mini (technology), Brussels (location), Silicon Valley (location), China (location), San Francisco (location), AI industrial revolution (concept), tech-geopolitics (concept), DeepSeek R1 release (event)" classification: "analysis" content_hash: "sha256:87548a32d518facf2948d758f5ea19f309c6eb63a4ea541451fe3df57fc547e7" acp_version: "0.2" token_counts_approximate: 1545 visibility: public agent_accessible: true status: "final" --- # Europe 2031 January 2025 - DeepSeek and ye shall find Caroline Dubois’ office is buzzing. This morning, a Chinese firm, DeepSeek, released a new AI model, R1. It is cheap and effective, and – although no European firm has played a part in developing it – Brussels is in a fervour. Caroline works on digital technology at the Directorate-General for Trade and Economic Security – DG TRADE, the part of the European Commission that deals with things like tariffs and exports controls. At twenty-eight, she has been there for three years, and feels she is earning the respect of her peers and superiors; but she, unlike them, is seriously worried about Europe’s future, and the DeepSeek news has not reassured her. She has recently visited Silicon Valley. It is 9,000 kilometres from Brussels, but it feels further. The idea that AI is sparking a new industrial revolution is a truism in California; in the European Commission offices, it is bordering on science fiction. R1’s rise has excited her colleagues because they see it as clear proof that it is possible to train cutting-edge AI without the resources of the Silicon Valley giants. European policymakers jump at the idea that it is possible to outsmart the Americans, to be small and nimble and clever, to do better without the hundreds of billions of dollars that have been pouring into indulgent American data centres and gigantic model training runs. The idea makes sense. DeepSeek has supposedly developed R1 at a fraction of the cost of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, or Anthropic’s Claude, but as far as anyone can tell, it is almost as powerful. It even has the new ‘reasoning’ feature that the American models have started rolling out, in which the model lays out its thought process on a virtual scratchpad. And its weights – the mathematical values that make the model what it is – are publicly available. Anyone can run the model on their own infrastructure, free from American tech dependence. Though somewhat energised by the hopeful mood in Brussels, Caroline isn’t quite ready to join in. She carefully listens to more cautious voices who point out that big efficiency gains are hardly unheard of – Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and OpenAI find them all the time. DeepSeek has smart researchers and moved fast, but will soon find itself constrained by computing power; China simply doesn’t have enough ‘compute’ to train models ever since America restricted exports on the cutting-edge AI chips that China can’t produce domestically. They argue that finding efficiency gains is much easier if you have lots of compute to help you find them. DeepSeek’s own CEO pointed out that their main problem is the US ban on AI chip exports. And so Silicon Valley is largely unfazed by R1. The hyperscalers do not slow down their massive AI investments. Days after R1, OpenAI releases o3-mini, a more impressive model than R1, and a sign that American progress is still rapid. In Brussels, the o3 news barely registers. Acknowledging it would mean accepting that AI acceleration is continuing, driven by huge American companies, led by CEOs that can’t be trusted. Caroline isn’t sure which side to take. She was in California three weeks ago, and what she saw there has stuck with her. She stayed with Christian Vogt, an old friend from her study-abroad programme in Berkeley half a decade earlier; she from Sciences Po, he from TU Munich, two of Europe’s leading universities. Christian had moved to San Francisco three years ago, just as she started at the Commission, to found a company building image and video models. The AI startup was still tiny, but it had recently closed a Series A funding round and Christian, a gregarious type, knew everyone . The whole visit had startled her. The hours Christian’s team pulled were insane – seventy- or eighty-hour weeks, people sleeping in the office. And when he took her to a dinner party at the house of another startup founder in Hayes Valley, she found the conversations almost incomprehensible; not because of the technical details but because of the deep belief that the world was going to change radically. ‘By January 2026, I think most of my code will be written by Claude,’ one guest said in a matter-of-fact tone. The host said he had stopped hiring junior engineers because ChatGPT would soon do the entry-level coding better. Someone mentioned, in passing, that they thought artificial general intelligence - AI that is better than any human at most tasks - was probably two or three years out. Caroline had asked what this would mean for Europe, given it lacks a competitive AI sector. But nobody at the table had really thought about Europe, except as a potential compliance headache. In the Waymo back to Christian’s apartment, Caroline had told him she found the whole visit disorienting. Christian had laughed and reassured her that after a few months in Silicon Valley, she would start to ‘feel the AGI’ herself. Caroline had wondered if Christian and his peers were part of a strange bubble, a cult even, or if she was living in a world that was already disappearing into the past. Back in Brussels, she had considered telling her director about the experiences she had had on her trip, but it felt untranslatable. The people she had spoken to were some of the smartest people she had ever met. They were calm, they were sharp, and they seemed well-informed. There was an urge inside her to take what they had told her deeply seriously and to get others to do the same. And yet their claims would have sounded insane in a Commission conference room halfway around the world. So she said nothing. The day after the R1 release, her phone buzzes. It’s Christian. Christian: ok so brussels is doing a deepseek victory lap??? Caroline: My director thinks it proves we can catch up… Christian: lol Christian: the lesson is reasoning models work and china can build them Christian: also, o3-mini is better and nobody is talking about it Christian: your director should come to SF Caroline: I wish. She puts the phone down. She isn’t sure Christian is right, but she isn’t sure he’s wrong, either. The voices of caution about R1 sound reasonable to her. So do the voices of excitement.