London: French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday urged the UK and France to catch up with the US and China while warning against dependency. "The UK and France are probably the two nations to be part of the race and leading the race in Europe, but we are lagging behind both the US and China," Macron said during the "AI Action: From Science to Growth" meeting held at Imperial College London as part of his state visit.

According to Anadolu Agency, Macron emphasized the importance of Europe "de-risking" its models and reducing dependency on US or Chinese solutions to remain competitive. He reiterated the need for Europe to adopt a global perspective on AI, focusing on science, training, and fostering ecosystems and startups through a European approach.

Macron expressed the importance of maintaining global cooperation, stating, "I don't want to decouple Europe, in the European perspective, from the rest of the world. It doesn't make sense. But we should look very lucidly at the world that is ours today. Are we sure that all the countries in this world will be super cooperative with us on the day you have a breakthrough innovation?" He also highlighted concerns over dependencies in computing capacities.

Reflecting on Brexit, Macron remarked, "If I follow properly the narrative of the Brexit, the whole story was to say it would be much easier to fix our problems without the EU. I'm not sure you fixed migration and financial issues post-Brexit much better than with the EU. I'm sure about one thing, having closer links is the best way to fix our critical issues on research, science, AI, and so on."

Macron's state visit marks the first by an EU head of state since Brexit, including diplomatic and cultural engagements such as a UK-France business reception and a special event at the British Museum on Wednesday.