European AI startups raised $23 billion in the first half of 2026, up 130% year over year, accounting for 55% of the region's venture funding. But funding alone won't give Europe more control over its AI future—governments and large businesses also need to buy what those startups are building, a missing link that emerged at the Human X conference in Amsterdam. Axelera AI's Fabrizio Del Maffeo and AI71's Mehdi Ghissassi emphasized that sovereignty doesn't require owning every layer of the AI stack.
Del Maffeo sees opportunity in specialized chips for inference as AI moves from cloud data centers to edge devices. Five-year-old Axelera AI has two chip generations sold to around 600 customers and plans to expand into decentralized cloud computing. Ghissassi, whose UAE-based AI71 partners with governments, argues the application layer is key for sovereignty where data ownership matters.
The UAE aims for half of citizen-government interactions to use AI agents within two years, leveraging mandates and abundant energy.
Source: Crunchbase News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing