Why the EU AI talent strategy needs to verify reality

The opportunity is real for Brussels, and the challenges are high, because the EU continues to follow the United States on almost all advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence. A recent BCG Henderson Institute report shows that stricter immigration rules and profound funding cuts for university research in the United States raise the possibility that the best IA researchers, a large part of which were not born in the United States, could seek to take their talents elsewhere. The repair of these best European academics is an important step for European decision-makers, but to catch up, the EU must also be able to attract talents beyond the European diaspora, which is only a small fraction of the mobile IA talent base on a global scale.

To redo in a magnet of technological talents, Europe must build an academic ecosystem more closely integrated into its industries, a necessary step to provide the career paths and information flows necessary to transform the discoveries and academic inventions into commercial value. The cost of this transformation will be considerable, as publicly discussed in the Draghi report. It is only then that EU investments in the academic world can help generate long -standing economic and geopolitical yields for the block.

The opportunity for Europe should not be overestimated

The EU recently announced an allowance of 500 million euros over the next two years to help attract foreign researchers. Member States have also launched their own initiatives, including France’s commitment of 100 million euros to its “Choosing France” platform to attract international researchers, and Spanish commitment of 45 million euros to help scientists attract them “despised or undervalued by the Trump administration”.

If these investments are made for the sole purpose of repatriating European Talents from AI to the United States, they may not fail. The United States is home to around 60% of the 2,000 main IA researchers in the world, one fifth from continental Europe. Even an exodus of historical proportions would only cover half of the current difference between the EU and the United States actions of the best IA researchers.

In the best laboratories in Genai, such as Openai and Anthropic, only a very small fraction of IA specialists (less than 1 percentage point of 25% of workers who obtained their undergraduate diploma outside the United States) obtained their baccalaureate in the EU. The future AI talent pipeline is not different: in 2023, the 10 main contributory countries of doctoral beneficiaries born abroad in computer science and mathematics in the United States represented 80% of the total. But none of these countries are in continental Europe.

The American research ecosystem on AI is massively supported by Asian talents, not Europe: 85% of US foreign nationals in technical jobs on AI in the main American laboratories are from China or India. So, 60% of all doctoral graduates in American computer and mathematics in the United States, Iran, Bangladesh and Taiwan represent most of the others. If the EU is seriously to become a dynamic center for global AI research talent, it must appear towards the East.

But the current (and potential) researchers of AI often do not see Europe as a higher destination. BCG’s talent tracker shows that Germany is doing the best among European countries, ranking 5^th Worldwide as a “dream destination” for highly qualified talents, followed by France (9^th), Spain (10^th), and the Netherlands (16^th). The EU is not only less attractive than the United States (2^ND), but also Canada (3^RD), the United Kingdom (4^th), and Australia (1^st), and roughly tied with the water (11^th). European countries are in no way the only nations determined to stimulate their own talent bases.

Part of the challenge is the lack of major EU university institutions with strong IA diplomas compared to other regions. None of the 50 main AI institutions in the world (as classified by the H5 Journal Impact Impact index of Google Scholar) is in the EU. A solid institutional basis for the main AI laboratories is essential to create the working environment capable of attracting the best and brightest.

The EU must invest in its universities to improve its position, but it must also look beyond the academic world to improve the whole of its innovation ecosystem. Almost a third of non-United States specialists go to the United States because of its vast career growth opportunities, including entrepreneurial efforts, a BHI survey of technological talent recruiters revealed.

The need for a concerted strategy around the university world and the industry

To begin with, European countries must improve school compensation in critical fields related to AI and technology more widely. In Europe, even during the adjustment of the parity of purchasing power, wages at the level of the associate professor are half of the people paid in the best American institutions. Europe must also increase the availability of research grants. Public research subsidies for IT and IT in the main American institutions of AI are the doubles that are available in Europe. Europe can however obtain a boost, if the United States takes place with cuts offered at the National Science Foundation budget.

It is well known that incentives for innovation are important. In the 2000s, some European countries reformed their academic patent laws to follow the American model, where American universities have patent rights and shared marketing benefits with teachers. But the reforms were not well adapted to the European context and led to a decrease in academic patent (between 17% and 50% depending on the country).

In addition, only about a third of the patented inventions of EU universities and research institutions are never used, largely due to their low integration into innovation clusters that stimulate marketing. Even the best EU innovation clusters, once again, fall outside the top 10 around the world, the United States being recorded for four places, and China Three. To change this, it is essential for European decision -makers to help build stronger bridges between the academic world and industry in order to guarantee that basic research effectively feeds economic value creation.

This includes strengthening the start-up and innovation ecosystem in universities themselves. The ultimate goal of attracting the best IA researchers is not simply to catch up, but to jump and produce the following The IP breakthrough, which will only increase in importance as IA models will become merchants. However, offering the next great thing requires an investment environment capable of supporting ambitious bets on potential breakthroughs from the academic world. Countries like Canada and the United Kingdom serve as edifying tales of the Warm Research Points on AI which have often had trouble translating academic breakthroughs into commercial success, a jump successfully undertaken by large American technological companies.

Many usual elements of the European reform menu will also strengthen the ecosystem of talents and IA innovation. As reported by the Draghi report of 2024 on the future of European competitiveness, the integration of EU capital markets is vital, as is the abolition of internal trade barriers which hinder the growth of startups at an early stage. Between 2019 and 2024, the investment in venture capital of AI in the EU was only a tenth of the latter in the United States, it is not surprising that almost a third of European “unicorns” founded between 2008 and 2021 moved elsewhere-usually in the United States

But above all, the list of reforms must also include strong incentives for the adoption of the AI. Currently, EU companies are late on their American counterparts in the generative adoption of AI between 45% and 70%. The commission of this gap will simultaneously help to fuel the European demand for specialized AI talents and to create economic opportunities beyond the academic world which are essential to attract the best and most brilliant in the world.

Excessive confidence could remove the EU

The EU is right to want to attract researchers to its university establishments which historically pushed the AI ​​border. This will require reorganizing the academic ecosystem and more systematically translated academic breakthroughs into the long -term economic and strategic unadership.

But it would be bad for European decision -makers to assume that the erosion of American attractiveness will lead to a talent windfall, based on their conviction that Europe is the inevitable “best” option. This will only be true if the region acts decisively to build its own integrated IA ecosystem capable of attracting the brightest minds of China, India and beyond. In the AI ​​breed, as on many other fronts, the EU presents the risk of being too confident in its conviction that it is rooted in third place. This kind of complacency could very well accelerate the descent of the EU in the minor leagues of global innovation.

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Read other Fortune Columns of François Candelon.

François Candelon is a partner of the investment company Seven2 and the former world director of the BCG Henderson Institute.

Etienne Cavin is a consultant at Advice group in Boston and a former BCG Henderson Institute ambassador.

David Zuluaga Martínez is main director of Boston Consulting Group Henderson Institute.

Some of the companies mentioned in this column are past or current customers of authors’ employers.