Redo You

At VivaTech 2025 in Paris, Nvidia’s leather-jacketed CEO Jensen Huang took the stage with a powerful claim: “Artificial intelligence is the greatest technology force of our time.” More than that, he argued, AI could become “the great equaliser” — a tool to level global disparities and empower nations to forge their own digital destinies.

But behind the optimism lies a more complex reality. AI’s future is being shaped not just by tech breakthroughs, but by geopolitics, economics, and who ultimately controls the compute infrastructure that powers intelligence. Is AI truly an equaliser—or a new layer of competition between the haves and have-nots?

Sovereign AI: Local Power in a Global Race

Huang’s central thesis revolves around “sovereign AI” — the concept that each nation should build its own AI infrastructure, using local data, local engineers, and its own legal and ethical guardrails. Unlike cloud-first strategies dominated by U.S.-based tech firms, sovereign AI promises more control and cultural alignment.

It’s an appealing proposition, especially in Europe. In Paris, Nvidia announced a major partnership with Mistral AI, deploying over 18,000 next-generation Blackwell GPUs to power France’s national AI efforts. The chips will be used not just for consumer tech, but for modelling in health, energy, defence, and education.

Similar partnerships are forming across the continent:

In Germany, Nvidia is working with automotive giants like BMW and Mercedes-Benz to apply AI to manufacturing and autonomous driving.
In Italy and Spain, government-supported AI factories are under development.
In the UK, Huang was a keynote speaker at London Tech Week, where he emphasised “data sovereignty as a cornerstone of national resilience.”

AI Factories: The New Industrial Infrastructure

Central to this sovereign AI vision is the AI factory — large-scale data centres designed to produce intelligence, not electricity or cars. “Data is the new oil,” Huang reminded his audiences, “but it’s only valuable if refined into intelligence.”

These AI factories are where raw data is cleaned, modelled, and turned into actionable insights — whether for autonomous vehicles, climate prediction, or drug discovery. Just as industrial factories powered the 19th and 20th centuries, AI factories, he claims, will drive the 21st.

But there’s a catch: building these factories requires enormous capital, technical expertise, and access to Nvidia’s most powerful chips — which remain in tight supply. For many developing nations, sovereign AI remains a theoretical ideal rather than an operational reality.

Europe’s Regulatory Dilemma

Huang’s charm offensive in Europe wasn’t just about selling chips. It was a gentle critique of European regulatory culture. The EU has led the world in data protection and AI governance through initiatives like the AI Act and Digital Markets Act. While praised for ethics, the continent has lagged in implementation speed and scalability.

“If regulation stifles innovation before it starts, the risk is not safety, it’s irrelevance,” one attendee paraphrased from Huang’s comments in London.

Still, Europe’s cautious approach reflects legitimate concerns. AI systems pose risks to privacy, employment, and democratic stability. The challenge is to build guardrails without stalling the vehicle — a balancing act no region has yet perfected.

Nvidia’s Global Strategy: Neutral Vendor or Strategic Power Broker?

While Huang speaks of empowerment, Nvidia’s role in the AI supply chain raises questions. The company is now as critical to AI infrastructure as Intel once was to personal computing. Nations and firms are effectively bidding for access to its hardware — and, increasingly, its influence.

Some critics argue that this places too much geopolitical power in the hands of a single commercial entity. Others see it as inevitable: without Nvidia, sovereign AI would remain a pipe dream for most.

Still, Nvidia’s outreach — working across political divides and economic tiers — shows a more globalist posture than some U.S. tech peers. Huang is crafting not just a hardware roadmap, but a diplomatic one.

The Real Question: Who Gets to Win?

Is AI truly an equaliser, or does it risk becoming a new arms race in digital clothing?

The answer may depend on what nations do next. Those who invest in local talent, data rights, and infrastructure could ride the wave of sovereign AI into an era of self-directed innovation. Others may remain consumers of intelligence, not creators — dependent on foreign platforms and systems they don’t control.

Either way, one thing is clear: the industrial era of AI has begun, and Nvidia is supplying the engines.