Europe Is Falling Behind in AI: Fabian Westerheide’s Wake-Up Call for 2026

Europe has brilliant researchers, ambitious founders, and world-class industry. Yet the AI race is being dominated elsewhere. In this episode, Dietmar Fischer talks with Fabian Westerheide, founder of Rise of AI, about why Europe is struggling with AI sovereignty, infrastructure, and execution, and what entrepreneurs can do right now to stay competitive.

Fabian explains how Rise of AI grew over a decade from early community meetups into a curated conference and ecosystem hub where Europe’s most relevant AI leaders meet. He also makes the case that Europe’s biggest strategic risk is dependency on American GPUs, hyperscalers, and cloud platforms, while policy, capital allocation, and digital administration move too slowly for exponential change.

You will learn what a GDPR compliant AI stack can look like, why EU AI Act compliant implementation is becoming a competitive advantage, and why Europe’s research-to-startup transfer remains painfully inefficient. This is a practical and provocative conversation about AI infrastructure, venture capital incentives, European-first tech choices, and the mindset shift required in 2026: stop waiting, start building.

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Chapters

00:00 Welcome and why Fabian chose AI

01:55 Rise of AI turns 10 years: from meetups to a curated conference

03:19 Europe’s biggest AI challenge: dependency on US cloud and GPUs

10:05 Optimists in a dystopian world: why Rise of AI exists

11:22 European AI champions and the sovereignty problem

16:45 Why Europe struggles to turn research into AI companies

19:40 2026 outlook: stop waiting, take responsibility, use AI

23:00 Where to find Fabian and Rise of AI

About Dietmar Fischer

Dietmar is a podcaster and AI marketer from Berlin. If you want to know how to get your AI or your digital marketing going, just contact him at argoberlin.com

Quotes from the Episode

1. “We are living the dystopia. But within this, I’m an optimist.”
2. “The whole stack is running on American GPUs, it’s running on American hyperscalers.”
3. “If you run a company, use AI, no excuses.”
4. “I realized back then AI will change the world.”
5. “You can’t put me in any box, but overall I’m dedicating 12 hours of a day for AI within Europe.”
6. “Don’t play the capitalistic game anymore… figure out what you want to do meaningful with your life.”

Where to find Fabian and the Rise of AI Conference:

• Fabian Westerheide: Website fabian-westerheide.de
• Rise of AI: Official site riseof.ai
• Rise of AI Ticket Shop: riseof.ai/ticket-shop
• LinkedIn: Fabian Westerheide

Music credit: "Modern Situations" by Unicorn Heads

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