Europeans are sleeping on the AI market while the rest of the world is feasting on gains. They've got all the ingredients top tier universities, technical talent, and regulatory framework but they're moving like they're stuck in dial up era ngl. EU needs to stop overthinking and start building.
I think there's the issue of large private corporation's in the US that function in a multinational environment buying up parents and research as it starts to turn a corner and show it's productive. This is a very common practice in medicine so I can't imagine it not being common in tech too.
It would be down to institutions (universities, government research and private researchers) to not sell their property as soon as they become valuable or for the EU and national governments to make an R&D fund that buys these - but they'd be competing with large us multinational organisations that have highly efficient and competitive models because they fail and go bankrupt if they don't.
As far as I'm aware, Philips (from the Netherlands) were a large early investor in TSMC - who sold up the shares they bought early on to invest in healthcare related products...