Asger Risom
The US government has abruptly banned all non-US citizens from accessing Anthropic’s most advanced AI models, sparking widespread outrage across Europe as politicians realize their tech infrastructure can be disconnected overnight.
Imagine waking up to find that a foreign government just unilaterally unplugged your most critical technology. That is exactly what happened to European researchers and businesses this week when the United States abruptly cut off all foreign access to the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence. The sudden blackout has triggered a massive geopolitical shockwave, forcing allied nations to confront the harsh reality that their digital future is entirely at the mercy of Washington.
A sudden blackout and a national security mandate
The crisis began when Anthropic suddenly disabled global access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5—the company’s most sophisticated AI models. According to Euronews, the sweeping restriction stems from a direct export control directive issued by the Trump administration citing unspecified national security reasons. The ban is so absolute that even Anthropic’s own non-US employees have been locked out of the systems.
The immediate consequences are already rippling across the Atlantic, disrupting live workflows. In the UK, former Armed Forces Minister Al Carns lamented that British hospitals, researchers, and tech companies had their pilot projects halted overnight by a foreign government. “This is not a story about AI,” Carns warned. “It is the story of every industry in which we were leaders.”
Demands for immediate technological sovereignty
Across the European Union, the unilateral US mandate has reignited furious debates over technological independence. A European Commission spokesperson told Euractiv that the move clearly underlines the continent’s urgent need for tech sovereignty. Meanwhile, independent cybersecurity experts like Lukasz Olejnik described the abrupt cutoff not as a mere wake-up call, but as the inevitable “price to pay for ignoring” the risks of reliance on overseas tech giants.
Political figures across the spectrum are now framing the directive as an existential threat. Former French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal declared that “the artificial intelligence war has already begun,” while French National Assembly leader Jordan Bardella urged immediate government support for domestic champions like Mistral AI to avoid being left behind. As former French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau bluntly put it: “In the race for artificial intelligence, a nation that depends on others for its technology is a nation that can be disconnected overnight.”
