The key takeaway from the AI Action Summit in Paris is not that the U.S. did not sign the final declaration: it is the emergence of a new AI bloc comprised of Europe and much of the rest of the world, built around open source.
 
Some 58 of the countries attending the summit - which together represent one half of the global population - signed a statement committing to promoting AI accessibility to reduce digital divides; ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, security and trustworthy; avoiding market concentration; and making AI sustainable for people and planet.

During the Summit leaders expressed concern about concentration of power in the hands of a few AI companies and the need for guardrails around the technology’s development, said Philippe Huberdeau, the French Government’s Secretary General of Scaleup Europe-AI Action Summit. This is fueling search for an alternative AI model which is trustworthy and community driven and is leading countries to accept that there is much to be gained by working together on what Anne Bouverot, the French President's Special Envoy for the AI Action Summit, calls an AI Commons.
 

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French AI unicorn Mistral AI, which played a starring role at the AI Action Summit in Paris February 11-12, arguably grabbed more headlines than any other upstart in Europe in the past week. Technology developed by the company, which is positioning itself as a trustworthy open source alternative to the U.S.’s OpenAI and China’s DeepSeek, is being integrated into consumer phones, the European Space Agency, government offices, corporate networks and European defense systems.

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