CEOs sound an AI rallying cry for Europe

U.S. President Donald Trump’s recently announced Stargate Project — a $500 billion investment in American AI infrastructure — should be a “wake-up call” for Europe, according to the CEO of one of the region’s biggest tech firms.

Asked on Thursday about the project, which is backed by OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle and led by the Trump administration, SAP CEO Christian Klein said it should set an example for Europe.

“It’s the right move, and it’s also about making the government more productive,” he said. “Look at Europe, we always complain about regulations about too many AI acts … It’s a great role model for Europe.”

Klein added that he would “absolutely support” a Stargate Project for Europe.

“We do business with all public sectors across the world, of course we would welcome that in Europe,” he told CNBC’s Karen Tso and Steve Sedgwick. “Europe needs it the most, from my perspective.”

Klein, who has been in the chief executive role at German software developer SAP since 2019, argued that the major barrier to starting a Stargate-type project in Europe is not a question of access to capital in the region being more restricted than in the United States.

“It’s not even the lack of financing — in Europe, it’s a question of who owns it,” he argued. “Who actually gives the order to say we digitize Europe, we digitize our agencies, and we are not doing it in silos, we are doing it as a union.”

He said countries are focusing on domestic AI development rather than looking at how markets could collaborate to develop the technology.

“Think about startups — we are a big multinational tech company, we can do it. But the small startups, they need a market to scale in and it’s by far not a union.”

“My hope is that … everything that’s happened in the United States is certainly a wake up call. We need to see proof but I hope now Europe comes together and form a union in digitization, it’s super important,” Klein added.

“When you look at our industries, we have manufacturing, autos, chemicals — we need to apply AI to make [them] more competitive. We need more boldness, more willingness, more courage.”

He said the responsibility falls on both politicians and businesses, and that lawmakers need to build the right frameworks so that companies can drive the AI transformation and implement the technology.

Roland Busch, CEO of Siemens, also told CNBC on Thursday that Europe needs to catch up with the United States.

“This is an engine which is moving very, very fast, so this is the point we have to [do] our homework,” he told CNBC at the WEF. “Just count the amount of data centers sitting in United States and being built in United States versus Europe.”

Busch said Europe needs more data centers built closer to home so local companies can develop and operate powerful AI tools.

“It’s not only the size, but … you need a smaller distance,” he said, suggesting that more data centers could be built in the Middle East, Germany or elsewhere in Europe. “We would appreciate more compute power in Europe, and that’s something we have to tackle as well.”

Olivier Blum, CEO of Schneider Electric, said his company has had a “massive boost” from the Stargate initiative, given its place in AI chip giant Nvidia’s supply chain.

Like Busch, though, he suggested governments ought to be working as allies rather than competitors on AI initiatives.     

“All the countries are looking at [how to foster AI development] — it’s important, of course, and we respect what the governments want to do,” he told Tso and Sedgwick in Davos.

“But at the end of the day, we have to understand that every company in the world is becoming more and more global. So government also has to understand that if they want to have their own domestic companies to be successful outside their home country, they need to find some common agreement. So sovereignty is important, but at the same time every company has to go beyond its own country and [be] willing to find a common ground to operate.”