European AI developers reject US calls to slow model development

European AI developers, led by Mistral, rejected calls from US competitor Anthropic to slow the pace of advanced AI model development, accusing American rivals of exploiting safety concerns to cement their market dominance. The French company Mistral and others dismissed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's proposal, viewing it as a self-interested move to maintain US technological supremacy. European officials and firms advocate for accelerating development, while some, like Hugging Face, support independent oversight but not slower progress. Europe, which relies heavily on US AI models, sees the initiative as an attempt to create unfair regulatory advantages. The region emphasizes the need for digital sovereignty and closing the technological gap with the US and China.