BRUSSELS — A top U.S. official on Monday pressured the European Union to join a Washington-led club on artificial intelligence and semiconductors.
The U.S. launched the Pax Silica global club in December, an effort to counter China’s dominance by securing the supply chains underpinning artificial intelligence, including critical minerals, semiconductors, energy and hardware.
But representatives from EU countries on Friday failed to give approval for the European Commission to begin formal talks with the U.S. State Department on joining the club.
U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg on Monday piled pressure on Brussels to get on board.
“Pax Silica is knitting together the trusted network the AI race requires. Europe belongs in that network. The question is whether Brussels will let it show up,” Helberg posted on X.
Helberg is visiting Brussels this week as part of a European tour that includes the Netherlands, France and the U.K.
The decision on whether the EU will join Pax Silica comes at a sensitive time in transatlantic relations, as the bloc considers how closely linked it wants to be with the U.S. on sensitive technologies including chips and gets ready to present a plan in May to reduce dependencies.
In December, the Commission sent its ambassador to the U.S., Jovita Neliupšienė, to the Pax Silica launch summit to take part in sessions on critical minerals and economic security. Since then, the Commission has been in early-stage discussions with the U.S.
Two EU countries, Sweden and Greece, have already signed up individually to the Pax Silica declaration.
The Netherlands — home to ASML, which designs and builds the world’s most advanced machines for making semiconductors and is essential to American chip supplies — participated in the inaugural summit but didn’t sign the declaration.
The Trump administration has in recent weeks also launched a fresh broadside against the EU concerning its digital regulations, which the U.S. considers unfairly penalize American companies. In his comments Monday, Helberg slammed the EU’s approach on AI, saying the bloc is “regulating its way into irrelevance.”
The EU’s tech rulebooks including the AI Act, the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act and the Data Act are “innovation killers,” he added, reiterating previous U.S. criticism of the EU’s tech rules.
Helberg last week co-wrote an opinion piece with Andrew Puzder, the U.S. ambassador to the EU, which said that “Europe trips itself up in the AI race.”
Milena Wälde contributed to this report.