Germany balks at paying for a European ChatGPT

The Large European AI Models (LEAM) initiative wanted Germany to help fund its hoped-for European version of ChatGPT — but the government has other ideas.

“The mundane problem is that the money is not there,” Jörg Bienert, chairman of the German AI Association, which is behind LEAM, told POLITICO. “That’s actually very sad because we’re not investing in our future at all right now,” he added.

LEAM consists of scientists and researchers who want Europe to catch up in the artificial intelligence race and not be stuck relying on foreign technology. Essential to their plan is the construction of a supercomputer dedicated to building language models, at an estimated cost of between €300 million and €400 million.

“We roughly estimated that we need 60 to 70 percent from the public sector as infrastructure investment,” coming to about €230 million, said Bienert. “We see these large models as a kind of public infrastructure … like a piece of highway.” And LEAM’s request would be only a “few kilometers.”

In January, the group presented a feasibility study, pitching a public-private partnership that would finance the endeavor with the state as an anchor investor. Without the federal government as a partner, though, it’s hard to get others on board, LEAM argues.

But the economy ministry, which financed the feasibility study and is LEAM’s most important partner in the federal government, isn’t committing to cash. In response to a POLITICO inquiry, it stated it was “currently still being intensively examined” how LEAM’s objectives could be implemented and said it “expressly” supported LEAM’s goals.

But the economy ministry’s agenda in recent months paints a different picture.

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the ministry was consumed with replacing Russian gas and revamping the country’s heating systems. There was also a scandal involving the firing of a state secretary on suspicion of favoritism in hiring, which caused a coalition crisis. “The topic of digital and AI does not take place at the highest level in this federal government in our view,” said Bienert.

While Germany is reluctant to invest, other European countries are starting to make moves on their own.

In March, the United Kingdom presented plans to build its own so-called BritGPT. “Because AI needs computing horsepower, I today commit around £900 million of funding … for an exascale supercomputer,” said U.K. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt.

France is also pushing ahead with the startup Mistral AI, which is set to raise nearly €100 million. But Europe still trails behind the U.S., where OpenAI alone has over $10 billion in funding under its belt.