Austria urges Europe to host Anthropic following US curbs on AI access

VIENNA, June 28 (Reuters) - Austria has proposed that the European Union should consider hosting Anthropic within the bloc's borders in order to counter efforts by the United States to block foreigners from using the AI company's most advanced models.

In a letter to EU Technology Commissioner Henna Virkkunen released by the Austrian government, Austria's State Secretary for Digitalization Alexander Proell wrote it was important that Europe was not cut off from major innovations.

"Let us jointly explore the strategic establishment and participation of Anthropic within the European Union. With legal certainty, market access, capital and a set of values that suits this company," Proell said in the letter.

He did not say how the step could be taken and acknowledged there would be scepticism about whether it was possible.

"The real question is not whether it is easy," Proell wrote. "The question is whether we Europeans are prepared to be the architects of our technological future, or whether we wish to remain mere administrators of decisions made elsewhere."

Anthropic did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the Austrian proposal.

Earlier this month, the European Commission proposed laws to boost domestic ​cloud, AI and semiconductor industries and cut reliance on U.S. Big Tech, defying U.S. government criticism of the bloc's crackdown ‌on its industry.

(Reporting by Francois Murphy in Vienna and Sumedha Mukherjee and Chandni Shah in Bengaluru; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Helen Popper)