EU Competition Chief to Press Big Tech on AI Power During US Visit

Ribera’s meetings with Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are scheduled for Tuesday (March 24) in San Francisco, per Reuters, citing a European Commission agenda item. The discussions mark a notable set of first-time meetings between Ribera and the three executives as the European Commission weighs competition concerns tied to AI development, deployment and distribution.

The San Francisco meetings take place during a week-long U.S. visit by Ribera, which will also include an appearance at an American Bar Association conference on Friday, according to Reuters. She is also due to meet Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jassy on Wednesday, extending a series of high-level contacts with the leaders of some of the world’s most influential technology companies.

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The meetings land at a sensitive moment for Brussels. Ribera has been outspoken about the risk that established digital gatekeepers could use their existing market power to shape the emerging AI sector in ways that entrench their dominance. According to Reuters, she has recently raised concerns about the full AI “stack,” signaling that regulators are looking beyond chatbots alone and examining the data used to train models as well as the cloud infrastructure that underpins them.

Read more: EU Pressured to Classify Smart TV Platforms as Big Tech Gatekeepers

That wider focus reflects a broader shift in EU enforcement thinking. The European Commission, which serves as the bloc’s competition authority, has warned that new risks are taking shape if powerful platforms give preferential treatment to their own AI products and services in ways that sideline competitors, according to Reuters. Those concerns sit squarely within the Commission’s larger campaign to rein in the influence of major digital platforms across search, social media, cloud computing and related markets.

Ribera has already opened several investigations involving Google and Meta business practices, per Reuters, and her U.S. trip suggests that AI competition issues are becoming an increasingly central part of those conversations. The current debate in Europe is not limited to traditional antitrust enforcement. It also intersects with the bloc’s broader effort to establish rules for advanced AI while preserving competition and preventing a handful of firms from controlling the sector’s core infrastructure.

The stakes are high because the industry’s biggest players are spending aggressively to secure their positions. OpenAI, Nvidia, Meta and Google are among the companies pouring billions of dollars into AI infrastructure as demand for generative AI services surges, according to Reuters. That spending race has sharpened concerns in Brussels that control over computing capacity, training data and platform access could become decisive competitive advantages.

At the same time, the EU is revisiting parts of its landmark AI Act through an omnibus proposal that critics say could dilute protections for the riskiest systems. Civil society groups have warned against weakening safeguards designed to address threats to health, safety and fundamental rights. The proposal has already triggered wider debate in the European Parliament, where some groups have floated broader changes.

Source: Reuters