Dutch tech leaders: Europe won’t lead in AI hardware, but can in AI apps

The race to dominate AI infrastructure has left Europe trailing the US — but the continent still has a shot at global leadership in AI apps.

That was the verdict of Dutch tech leaders at the Assembly, the invite-only policy track of TNW Conference in Amsterdam.

While Silicon Valley controls the scaffolding for AI, they urged Europe to focus on building apps on top.

Leading the call was Jeroen van Glabbeek, CEO and founder of CM.com, a customer engagement platform with a market cap of around €217mn and annual revenues of €274mn in 2024.

Van Glabbeek believes the US advantage in AI infrastructure could become a launchpad for European software. “The infrastructure is already there,” he said.

That infrastructure is being built with unprecedented investment. In 2025 alone, Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft plan to spend over $300bn (€261bn) combined on data centres, networking, and cloud services ...