EU, China and Middle East Challenge US to Recruit AI Talent
Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash
The tech world
The global competition to challenge US dominance in AI intensifies. With domestic cuts and uninviting restrictive policies, the United States risks losing its primacy. While new emerging powers build independent and attractive technology hubs
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The race in the artificial intelligence sector is increasingly based on so-called human talent, or the skills of expert professionals, highly sought after by companies around the world. According to Business Insider, some key employees of Google Deepmind , the division of the group that deals with AI, sign a very strict non-compete agreement lasting one year, during which they are still paid. In short, Deepmind is willing to pay its top talent not to do anything, just so they don't go elsewhere.
It is a practice that says a lot about the high level of investment underway in a sector that has historically been dominated by the United States, but which is becoming increasingly polycentric and competitive. A recent study by the US think tank Hoover Institution has in fact demonstrated that the success of DeepSeek, the Chinese chatbot that last January amazed Western observers, did not come out of nowhere. The Chinese sector has managed to form a notable pool of professionals in the sector , demonstrating its independence from US companies and universities: more than half of the researchers who worked on DeepSeek, in fact, have never left China.
The Trump Administration’s recent cuts to scientific research and universities therefore risk worsening a situation in which the United States seems to have begun to lose its competitive edge. And it’s not just China’s fault: Europe also has a booming AI research center, in London, where Deepmind itself is based (which was acquired by Google in 2014). And then there’s the European Union, which is trying to attract scientists and researchers from the United States with initiatives such as “Choose Europe for Science,” which will invest $500 million by 2027.
Another hub in strong growth is the Middle East, especially the Persian Gulf states such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which can boast strong investments and a favorable energy policy for the increasingly expensive data centers, necessary for the operation and development of AI. This Monday, the Saudi crown, a few hours after President Trump's visit to the country, launched Humain, a new company designed specifically for the development of data centers and web infrastructure, which is only part of a one hundred billion dollar plan for the sector.
The first technology companies to arrive in the region and establish themselves in the local cloud market are all American: Amazon Web Services, Oracle, Microsoft’s Azure, Google Cloud. In recent years, however, Arab countries have increasingly entered into commercial agreements with China’s Huawei, Tencent, and Alibaba . According to the Rest of World website, Chinese giants are gaining ground quickly thanks to agreements with regional telecom companies, such as STC, E& Enterprise, OmanTel, and Ooredoo.
Huawei has already built four cloud computing facilities, as well as a data center in Saudi Arabia that features ultra-low network latency to minimize communication delays. All this, while the Saudi government has launched a “cloud first” policy, whereby public employees are encouraged to favor online services, with the aim of making the system more efficient and reducing waste.
Another advantage for Chinese companies over American ones is a greater harmony in the management of personal data, which has accelerated the spread of these services and the signing of new agreements. But what made the difference was artificial intelligence, with Chinese providers that moved quickly and integrated AI into their offerings , finding a friendly shore in Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Sa'ud, determined to make the country a global hub for the technology sector.
Despite their advantage in the region, therefore, US companies “have to deal with increasingly rigorous scrutiny regarding the management of personal data”, while Chinese companies seem to enjoy high-level agreements, the result of diplomatic understandings, continues Rest of World. At the same time, for reasons more related to national security and the shock of Trump's re-election, even in the EU there is an ongoing reflection on the excessive dependence on US tech giants, confirming how the American advantage is shrinking .
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