Paris AI summit attracts world leaders and CEOs eager for technology wave

World leaders and technology executives are convening in Paris on Monday to discuss how to safely embrace artificial intelligence at a time of mounting resistance to heavy-handed red tape that businesses say stifles innovation.

Eagerness to rein in AI has waned since previous AI summits in Britain and South Korea that focused world powers' attention on technology's risks after ChatGPT's viral launch in 2022.

As U.S. President Donald Trump tears up his predecessor's AI guardrails to promote U.S. competitiveness, pressure has built on EU policymakers to pursue a lighter-touch approach to AI to help keep European firms in the tech race.

Some EU leaders, including summit host French President Emmanuel Macron, and tech companies are hoping flexibility will be applied to the bloc's new AI Act to help homegrown startups.

"There's a risk some decide to have no rules and that's dangerous. But there's also the opposite risk, if Europe gives itself too many rules," Macron told regional French newspapers in an interview published on Friday.

"We should not be afraid of innovation," he said.

Trump's early moves on AI underscored how far the strategies to regulate AI in the United States, China and EU have diverged.

European lawmakers last year approved the bloc's AI Act, the world's first comprehensive set of rules governing the technology. Tech giants and some capitals are pushing for it to be enforced leniently. Brussels is finalising an accompanying code of practice.

Moreover, Trump's brakes-off approach has emboldened the regulation-cautious U.S. Big Tech groups from which Europe needs to seek investment, said British think-tank Chatham House.

Meanwhile, China's DeepSeek challenged U.S. and British AI leadership last month by freely distributing a human-like reasoning system, galvanizing geopolitical and industry rivals to race faster still.

"An unpredictable global scramble to develop AI is underway, as the U.S. turns inward and China boasts new capabilities," Chatham House said.

Trump is not sending the U.S. AI Safety Institute to Paris, in a troubling sign to those hoping for global risk-based rules governing AI.

Reuters