Europe's AI funding surge

European start-ups pulled in $17.6 billion in the first quarter, and artificial intelligence took more than half of the money for the first time. (news.crunchbase.com) Crunchbase said Europe’s venture funding rose nearly 30 percent from a year earlier in January through March 2026, marking a second straight quarter of growth. Artificial intelligence companies raised $9.2 billion, while total deal volume across the region fell 40 percent year over year. (news.crunchbase.com) The biggest rounds show how concentrated that money became. Data center builder Nscale, self-driving company Wayve, physical artificial intelligence lab Advanced Machine Intelligence, and legal software company Legora led Europe’s largest financings in the quarter. (news.crunchbase.com) PitchBook said artificial intelligence “mega-rounds” and a handful of high-profile companies defined the quarter, with nontraditional investors such as corporates and hedge funds joining at record levels. It called the quarter Europe’s strongest start in nearly four years, while warning that valuations were becoming more concentrated around artificial intelligence. (pitchbook.com) That investment wave is landing in a region that is still wary of who controls the technology and the data behind it. A POLITICO European Pulse survey of 6,698 adults in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain found 84 percent distrust American tech companies with personal data and 93 percent distrust Chinese firms. (politico.eu) The same survey found only 51 percent trust European tech firms with personal data, and 45 percent trust their national government. The poll was conducted by Cluster17 from March 13 to March 21, 2026. (politico.eu) Stanford University’s 2026 Artificial Intelligence Index said optimism and anxiety are rising at the same time. Globally, 59 percent of respondents said artificial intelligence products offer more benefits than drawbacks, while 52 percent said those products make them nervous. (hai.stanford.edu) In the United States, Stanford cited Pew Research Center data showing only 10 percent of Americans said they feel more excited than concerned about artificial intelligence in daily life. The same Stanford chapter said 64 percent of Americans expect artificial intelligence to lead to fewer jobs over the next 20 years, while only 5 percent expect more. (hai.stanford.edu) (pewresearch.org) That split now shows up in rulemaking as well as polling. Wired reported on April 10 that OpenAI backed Illinois Senate Bill 3444, which would limit when artificial intelligence developers can be held liable for “critical harm,” including mass casualties or disasters causing more than $1 billion in damage. (wired.com) Wired then reported on April 15 that Anthropic opposed the same bill and pushed instead for changes that preserve stronger accountability for model makers. The disagreement put two of the best-funded artificial intelligence companies on opposite sides of who should bear legal risk when systems fail. (wired.com) Europe’s quarter ended with more money chasing fewer companies, more trust flowing to local firms than foreign ones, and no consensus on liability even among the labs building the systems. The next test is whether that capital produces durable businesses before public skepticism hardens into stricter limits. (news.crunchbase.com) (politico.eu) (wired.com)