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World leaders want American AI. They just don’t want America to be able to turn it off.
At the G7 Summit on Wednesday, world leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi voiced concerns that the U.S. could cut off their countries’ access to top American AI models at any time. Macron warned G7 leaders and AI executives—including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and President Donald Trump—over lunch that if the U.S. “from one day to the next can turn off the switch,” it could harm European economies and the AI firms themselves. This follows the Trump administration blocking Anthropic from exporting its new Mythos 5 and Fable 5 models on national security grounds, after Amazon flagged potential safety guardrail bypasses. Despite cybersecurity experts noting similar capabilities exist in freely available models like those from OpenAI, Anthropic’s models remain restricted. The episode highlights a risk for international companies building on U.S. AI infrastructure: access can be revoked overnight for undisclosed reasons. Modi expressed concern about the block, stating democratic nations need unfettered access to top AI models to protect critical infrastructure. Aidan Gomez, CEO of Canadian AI firm Cohere, emphasized that digital sovereignty is about who controls foundational technology for economic and national security. During the meeting, G7 leaders discussed a “trusted partners” scheme to grant non-U.S. nations access to advanced AI models from firms like Anthropic and OpenAI, bypassing U.S. restrictions. Countries and companies could qualify if they use models to strengthen defenses against rivals like China. However, the scheme’s scope remains unclear, and Macron noted Washington should support broader access, as nobody would buy U.S. AI if it could disappear overnight. These concerns arise as Europe and others push for AI sovereignty, a difficult goal when American models continue to lead.