Private Wealth

July 2, 2026

If the future is a data center, then the United States and China are already standing in the engine room. Europe, by contrast, is still reading the fire safety regulations. Artificial intelligence is no longer merely a technology topic; it has become an industrial policy power factor. It is about models, chips, data, energy, cloud infrastructure, capital market access and scale. This is precisely where the gap becomes most visible. The United States has the leading model providers, the deepest capital markets and the dominant cloud infrastructure. China is building its own ecosystems with state-driven determination. Europe is watching, commenting, regulating and hoping that sovereignty will eventually work as a business model.

This development is clearly visible in equity markets. In the United States, the major platforms, semiconductor companies and infrastructure stocks are benefiting from the massive investment cycle around AI. In Asia, Japan and Korea in particular are beneficiaries. Japan supplies machinery, equipment and precision technology for chip production. Korea benefits from memory chips, especially where demand for high-performance memory for AI applications is exploding. Europe can participate in this only to a limited extent. Individual suppliers and equipment manufacturers are relevant, but a broad, listed AI ecosystem with global reach is not visible.

The start-up landscape is even more problematic. Of course, there are European names. But measured by access to capital, compute capacity and speed, no serious European challenger is in sight that could truly threaten OpenAI, Anthropic or the large Chinese model developers. The action is elsewhere. For potential IPOs of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, or Anthropic, the United States remains the natural “place to be.” That is where the investors, analysts, customers, cloud partners and valuation appetite are located. Europe, by contrast, may not have a comparable AI industry, but it already has a comprehensive rulebook. That is not wrong, but it is revealing. Others are building the factories of the future; Europe is writing the warning label.

At the same time, the macroeconomic environment has changed. The Iran war had previously burdened Europe through higher energy prices, weaker real wages, rising transport costs and an already fragile economy. The Strait of Hormuz became the central bottleneck of the global economy, and the uncertainty was immediately reflected in oil prices, bond yields and equity markets. The situation has since brightened. Negotiations between the United States and Iran, as well as the gradual reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, have brought relief to energy markets. That this was possible had been foreseeable. None of the parties to the war had a lasting interest in keeping one of the world’s most important energy corridors blocked. Oil prices have fallen back close to pre-war levels, energy is becoming cheaper and inflationary pressure is easing.

That is precisely why the European Central Bank’s latest decision looks particularly unfortunate. The ECB raised its key interest rate in June, even though inflation data were already moving in the right direction. In the eurozone, inflation fell from 3.2% in May to 2.8% in June. Core inflation also eased. A central bank must preserve credibility, but it should not react to a shock that is already fading. The rate hike comes late, but hits early. It makes financing more expensive, weighs on investment and creates an additional investment-hostile environment in Europe.

This further exacerbates Europe’s structural disadvantage. Europe needs capital, risk appetite and industrial scale in order to at least keep pace in AI. Instead, it gets higher financing costs, political fragmentation and regulatory complexity. The United States and China are fighting for dominance in models. Europe is standing on the sidelines, looking for the charging cable. For investors, the conclusion remains sober. Those who understand AI as a long-term productivity and earnings cycle will continue to find the key beneficiaries primarily outside Europe.