Across Europe and its neighboring regions, artificial intelligence is rapidly shifting from a software trend into a matter of national infrastructure, economic strategy, and geopolitical positioning. Countries such as Finland and Germany are focusing on building industrial-scale AI capacity, including data centers, computing infrastructure, and reduced regulatory friction to stay competitive with the U.S. and China. Meanwhile, others like Poland are prioritizing strict governance structures to enforce the EU AI Act, highlighting a growing divide between innovation speed and regulatory control. At the same time, high adoption countries such as Portugal show strong consumer and workplace use of AI, while still lagging in deeper industrial value creation. Smaller or emerging economies, including Azerbaijan, Moldova, and Balkan states, are investing in governance frameworks, digital skills, and foreign-backed infrastructure projects to avoid being left behind. Together, these developments reveal a continent split between AI users, regulators, and infrastructure builders—each trying to secure a place in what is increasingly becoming a “compute-driven” global hierarchy.
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https://www.sitra.fi/en/news/finland-can-capture-a-significant-share-of-ai-driven-growth/
