For years, Europe has stood apart from Silicon Valley through its willingness to regulate technology. Its sweeping AI Act, which began taking effect in phases in 2025, prohibits certain uses of the technology, imposes safeguards on high-risk systems, and requires the marking of AI-generated content.
But as the AI race accelerates, an unusual reversal appears to be underway. American tech executives are increasingly calling for stronger safeguards, while European officials, anxious about falling behind, are emphasizing innovation and competitiveness. In July, the EU adopted amendments easing some of the law’s requirements and delaying others.
Ireland has a particular stake in Europe’s approach to AI. The country hosts the European operations of major American technology companies and is pushing to accelerate AI adoption, support homegrown startups, and expand the infrastructure needed to power the technology.
Fast Company sat down with Peter Burke, Ireland’s minister for enterprise, tourism, and employment, to discuss how the country is navigating those challenges. The conversation, which took place shortly after an international AI summit in Dublin, has been edited for length and clarity.
For years, European officials argued that Silicon Valley needed stronger oversight. Now we’re hearing American tech executives calling for new safeguards, while European officials seem to be emphasizing competitiveness. Has Europe become more concerned about falling behind in the AI race than about the risks of the technology itself?
First of all, I think public trust is very important from a perspective of developing AI, particularly having a strong regulatory regime that underpins it. And the EU AI Act does that on a risk basis, which I think is really welcome.
We obviously have revised the trajectory of the EU AI Act, trying to ensure that it’s proportionate, it’s risk-based. And from a state perspective, Ireland has established its own AI office, really looking at a sectoral approach in developing AI.
When you are a small, agile country, you can do that in terms of having the responsibility for AI development and risk management in the core competency that they’re already responsible for. Like, if it’s medicines, it’s the Health Products Regulatory Authority. If it’s aviation, the Aviation Authority. And obviously the AI office then draws all those strands together.
Then we also look at having our regulatory sandbox contained in it, again to support innovation and develop AI throughout the economy, and also to look at our skills piece.
So I think you have to have effective, proportionate regulation. Because if you don’t, and public trust is lost, or if unintended consequences start to take hold of the economy, that wouldn’t be good for the ecosystem.
AI agents have been in the news quite a bit lately, especially instances where they’ve taken unauthorized actions. Does Europe need new regulations specifically addressing autonomous AI agents, or does the existing AI Act cover them sufficiently?
I think it does cover it from our perspective currently, but obviously the Act is evolving. It is living with the pace of AI development, which is very fast.
In terms of the risk and regulatory requirement of a new product coming forward, obviously the EU has to ensure that it meets the terms of the Act and that it is tested and approved. That’s a key bedrock I think that the Act was founded on.
We’re very keen to work with some of the very big companies to ensure that that is the case. You need an open forum to work with companies. You don’t want to see cases where unintended consequences have happened and have not been spoken [about]. We’re very keen to ensure that there is a strong regulatory base for it.
There’s a debate about whether Europe needs to develop its own frontier AI models, or whether that’s the best use of its resources. How do you think about that?
From our perspective, obviously the States are doing their regulation in terms of they’re very heavily focused on innovation and driving forward the pace of change, because we see it’s moving at a breakneck pace.
Europe is focused on a dual approach, trying to get the balance with proportionate regulation to protect citizens, to build public trust, and to ensure that the ecosystem is strong that AI has been developed in. And also really working with other partners to ensure that does take hold, and ensuring that we are benefiting from the application stage, so that it is driving revenue growth within organizations.
We saw it very clearly in our AI summit last week, where you can see essentially where capacity has been developed for revenue growth, where employees can increase productivity, looking at other areas that are conducive to the trajectory of growth in some of those exciting new firms.
That’s what we’re focused on through the AI office as well.
You’ve mentioned the opportunities for productivity and growth. But what about jobs that could be displaced by AI? How is Ireland preparing for that?
We’re also looking at the risk matrix of potential jobs that do come under risk from AI—particularly in consultancy, some ICT, financial services—and how you get in front of the curve to provide transformational training for those at-risk cohorts to make those jobs more sticky and develop them so they can be upskilled to get some of the opportunity that AI does present.
It’s something we’ve announced a very significant training fund [for] last week, over 200 million euros, to speak to that cohort of human capital.
Can you tell me more about that retraining? Are workers being prepared for entirely new jobs, or is the goal to help them adapt and keep their existing jobs?
There’s a cross-fertilization, too, of different tasks. So we have skills partners throughout our state that really deploy a lot of training to key sectors that are at risk.
We established a new cabinet subcommittee, which directly has ministerial involvement from the government, looking at training, skills, and where there are potential risks of jobs becoming displaced.
Because we’re looking at a very [different] type of transition in our economy. It’s not a period of decline. It’s where you’ll see more traditional roles end and change very significantly, but also very significant opportunity in other key areas.
So we have our Expert Group on Future Skills Needs, which is essentially a high-level group that has been established over the last number of decades that looks at how skills transformation takes place in the economy, what we need to watch out for, and how we have, particularly in our tertiary education setting, how we develop courses to meet the needs of the economy as it evolves from year to year.
We’re doing that very significantly now with AI at its core, and seeing how do we ensure that those jobs that are at risk get that key training, so they can benefit from the opportunity that presents itself for their particular companies for productivity and for renewed revenue growth.
What advantages does Europe have in AI that American companies might struggle to replicate?
I think we have a significant advantage from an Irish perspective. I think the IMF called this out recently in one of its reports, that we have a very established tech sector, a very strong skills base.
We have one in five people who work in the Irish economy [who] were not born in Ireland, so it demonstrates a very internationalized workforce. But 17% of our engineers have AI capability, which is very strong. We’re leading the charge in terms of STEM graduates, ICT graduates per capita in Europe, which is well over double. And that again underscores the huge human capital advantage that we have.
So I think that puts us in a very good place when you have that matched with an established tech sector. I think that really drives us to benefit a lot from the opportunity for AI.
And I think we really showed that in our summit last week, when you saw what some exciting Irish companies are doing from the perspective of the application stage, how they’re growing revenue and monetizing that new technology.
Our SMEs are catching up, albeit you’d like to see it at a faster pace. But the interesting point is that almost 60%-plus of the workforce is using generative AI, so we’re very much ahead of the curve in many respects.
Our large companies are obviously up there, but our SMEs have a journey to go, and we’re working very closely with them to develop that model as well.
Data centers already account for roughly a quarter of Ireland’s metered electricity consumption. As AI infrastructure expands, how do you decide when additional investment is worth the pressure it places on the country’s energy system?
The key thing is trying to develop our grid. We have about 19 billion euros in our new capital plan to build out our grid to bring more renewables onstream. Its predecessor was around 8 billion euros, so that just shows you the huge ambition that we have.
But we’re using it to be very strategic to try and drive our renewables. So we changed policy recently, where anyone looking for a connection for a large energy user or hyperscaler has to ensure that 80% of their power demand comes from renewable sources. And that’s providing a strategic opportunity to drive our offshore renewables, of which we have five projects on the east coast of Ireland.
We’re trying to mitigate that with a new policy to present a strategic opportunity for the Irish economy, where you have the digital transition facilitating the green transition, working hand in glove.
And then we have our energy parks. We’re developing a concept where you’ll have a large renewable generation capacity on the same site as a hyperscaler or a very significant large energy user.
We’re bringing forward private-wire legislation, hopefully later on this year or early next year, which will show the agility to provide connection. I think that really cements us as you’re using one area, which is having large energy users, drive another, which we’re trying to get less dependent on—obviously fossil fuels and international shocks that you can see through the geopolitical landscape now, which is very turbulent.