At TechBBQ, Europe Asks Who Should Control AI

At TechBBQ in Copenhagen, the conversation among investors, founders and operators from across Europe centered not just on what to build with AI, but who should control it. From stage talks to cocktail hours and after-parties, discussions repeatedly returned to how the region could gain more control over the technology powering the current AI wave.

The sovereignty question matched this year's conference theme, 'Emerging from Agency,' and was given added urgency by Anthropic's decision earlier in 2026 to make its Mythos and Fable AI models unavailable to users outside Europe. That incident pushed many in the European ecosystem to weigh owning models and infrastructure outright rather than renting that power from the United States and China.

Reactions among startups were mixed. One executive said the loss of Anthropic's models seriously disrupted his software team, while another shrugged it off, acknowledging that reliance on two geopolitical powers for AI could cause headaches down the line but that things remained workable for now.

Ellen de Brever, an angel investor and head of partnerships at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Cellerator, said the theme felt particularly timely as the conversation shifted from what AI can do to what people are actually willing to let it do. The conference wrapped up August 27.