Velocity 3 - The most important transformation of the century is imminent. Europe isn't ready. What can we do?
AI agents now match or beat PhD-level experts across a growing list of scientific domains. And the length of tasks they can complete unsupervised has doubled roughly every seven months — with early signs the curve is bending upward. If the trend holds, AI that does in a day what a skilled team needs weeks for is a question of a few years, not decades.
Europe is watching this happen from the sidelines. It holds ~5% of global AI compute (the US ~75%, China ~15%), attracts 6% of global AI venture capital, and produced just three notable AI models in 2024 — against forty in the US. Stay on this trajectory and the EU doesn't crash; it quietly slides into irrelevance.
There is one way out: aligned acceleration.
About the Agenda
There will be a short talk from Prof. Samwald, then an open fireside chat: bring your questions.
We'll briefly explore the global picture — the trajectory the US is already on (Situational Awareness, AI 2027), what a serious European scenario looks like (Europe 2031), and why middle powers without China- or US-scale capital risk getting squeezed out of the race entirely.
Then, drawing on the Accelerate Europe initiative, we'll briefly summarize the Accelerate & Align model — why speed and capability have to grow together with trust and coordination.
About the speaker
Few people understand this moment better than Assoc. Prof. Matthias Samwald, PhD. He is one of only two Austrians on the EU AI Act's new scientific panel — sixty independent experts advising Europe on the systemic risks of frontier models — and co-chaired the Safety & Security work behind the EU's Code of Practice for General-Purpose AI, the framework that OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic now build on. He leads the Accelerate Europe initiative and is an Expert on the recently formed EU AI Scientific Panel, whose mission is to make AI-driven progress work for Europe and the world.
"The future will not wait for Europe. But if Europe makes the right choices, it can be where the future starts to go well — and that matters for everyone."
Details
Date: 8 July 2026 · Time: 18:00 (be on time) · Location: Home of InnoVation
Tickets: Free — limited spots. RSVP below.