Christophe Fouquet is the CEO of ASML, a Dutch company that makes machines that make semiconductors. And when it comes to the world’s smallest (and thus most powerful) semiconductors, which are made by a process called extreme ultraviolet lithography, ASML is the only company in the business of making the machines that make them.
Speaking to Politico recently, this is what Fouquet had to say about the EU’s regulation of AI, and more specifically its AI Act, an AI rulebook approved by the bloc even before it had an AI sector:
“We didn’t start running, we didn’t start even walking, and we already had in front of us all the obstacles to not be able to make even the first step.
As a display of regulatory overreach that takes some beating, but the EU is what it is.
The result?
Politico:
99 percent of the company’s machine sales come from outside Europe, Fouquet said, a striking figure for a company based in the Netherlands and central to the global AI supply chain…
In response to Fouquet’s criticism of the bloc’s AI law, European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said that “the AI Act supports innovation by increasing trust, and trust leads to increased uptake and investments.”