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Can €125 million build Europe’s next OpenAI? Germany is willing to try

EuroNews · 🇫🇷 public France · · 608 words · By Roselyne Min
European Innovation Funding EU-US-China AI Competition Technological Sovereignty
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Euronews Next spoke with SPRIND’s Jano Costard to hear whether Europe can still catch up in the AI race and what Europe can still do differently.

Claims checked 9
Techniques found 1
Topics 3

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center100%
Right0%

4 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

Euronews Next spoke with SPRIND’s Jano Costard to hear whether Europe can still catch up in the AI race and what Europe can still do differently.

Why it matters

Germany is launching a €125 million artificial intelligence (AI) competition to help Europe build its own frontier artificial intelligence labs amid a global race.

Common ground

The initiative by Germany’s federal innovation agency SPRIND, called “Next Frontier AI,” aims to fund companies that could eventually become Europe’s own OpenAI or DeepSeek.

Perspective signals

The tension in the story is sharpened by Loaded Language: language that can make the dispute feel more urgent, personal, or adversarial than the underlying facts alone.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://www.euronews.com/next/2026/05/25/we-have-no-time-to-waste-germany-launch…

psychologyPropaganda Techniques Detected

eFinder identified 1 propaganda technique in this article. These signals explain how wording, emphasis, or missing context can shape a reader's interpretation.

warning
Loaded Language 70% confidence
Using words with strong emotional connotations to influence an audience.
Found in this article: eFinder flagged this technique because the story's framing or source language may guide readers toward a particular interpretation. Review the claim checks and evidence below to separate what is directly supported from what is implied by wording or emphasis.
Why it matters: Recognizing loaded language helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 9 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

info Single Source 4
check_circle Corroborated 3
verified Verified By Reference 1
help Insufficient Evidence 1
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Claim 1: “DeepSeek released its V4 model in April”
CORROBORATED
Web search results specifically mention that DeepSeek released a preview of V4 on April 24, 2026.
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web search NEUTRAL — DeepSeek is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by the Chinese company DeepSeek. Released on 20 January 2025, DeepSeek-R1 surpassed ChatGPT as the most downloaded freeware app on th…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepSeek_(chatbot)
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web search NEUTRAL — DeepSeek Models & Pricing. Legacy aliases now have a deprecation path: deepseek-chat and deepseek-reasoner are marked for deprecation on July 24, 2026, and the docs state that they map to the non-thin…
https://evolink.ai/blog/deepseek-v4-release-window-prep
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web search NEUTRAL — When DeepSeek released a preview of V4 on April 24, 2026, one detail consumed the technology world: the model had been natively adapted to run on Huawei’s Ascend 950-series inference chips.
https://slguardian.org/why-deepseek-v4-hasnt-fully-cut-ties-…
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Claim 2: “The initiative by Germany’s federal innovation agency SPRIND, called “Next Frontier AI,” aims to fund companies that could eventually become Europe’s own OpenAI or DeepSeek.”
CORROBORATED
The evidence confirms the initiative is called 'Next Frontier AI' by SPRIND and aims to create European frontier AI labs, which aligns with the goal of creating alternatives to dominant US/Chinese firms like OpenAI.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Over the course of two years, SPRIND will invest a total of €125 million through this innovation competition to build European Frontier AI labs. In autumn 2028, up to three winning teams will be selec…
https://www.sprind.org/en/words/magazine/next-frontier-ai-ro…
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web search NEUTRAL — We expect a theoretical foundation, a realistic roadmap for further development, and a sign of life demonstrating that the core innovation works, is scalable, and strategically significant. The Funke …
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jano-costard-49b561143_the-sp…
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web search NEUTRAL — OpenAI's frontier models help your business create, code, and innovate with confidence.API Platform. Create AI applications, experiences, and automated operations.
https://openai.com/business/
verified
Claim 3: “Most leading AI firms, including OpenAI and Anthropic, are based in the US”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
Wikipedia explicitly confirms that OpenAI is an American organization headquartered in San Francisco.
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web search NEUTRAL — OpenAI is an American artificial intelligence (AI) research organization headquartered in San Francisco, consisting of a for-profit public benefit corporation (PBC) partially controlled by a nonprofit…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI
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web search NEUTRAL — We believe our research will eventually lead to artificial general intelligence, a system that can solve human-level problems. Building safe and beneficial AGI is our mission.
https://openai.com/
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web search NEUTRAL — OpenAI has 248 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.
https://github.com/openai/
info
Claim 4: “In the final stage, up to three teams can receive up to €15.5 million each.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The provided evidence discusses Anthropic's Project Glasswing and Mistral AI, but contains no information regarding the final stage funding of the SPRIND initiative.
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web search NEUTRAL — Anthropic is committing up to $100M in usage credits for Mythos Preview across these efforts, as well as $4M in direct donations to open-source security organizations. Project Glasswing is a starting …
https://www.anthropic.com/glasswing
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web search NEUTRAL — Frontier AI. In your hands.AI application development. Build and deploy AI apps with complete control: post-train models, build custom agents, and run production AI anywhere—from edge to cloud—with en…
https://mistral.ai/
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web search NEUTRAL — The next frontier of intelligence will come from models that can understand, perceive, generate and act in the world.The currently loaded video is the source file. We are building AI to simulate the w…
https://runwayml.com/
info
Claim 5: “Up to six teams will continue to the second stage with funding of up to €8 million each.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The provided evidence for this claim discusses general AI architecture and the scarcity of frontier AI, but does not mention the specific funding stages or amounts for the SPRIND initiative.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — It limits the ability to perceive actively. The next data architecture for AI must therefore be hierarchical, parallel, and compute-aware: a structure that lets models access the gist first, then sele…
https://www.edge-ai-vision.com/2026/05/the-next-frontier-in-…
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web search NEUTRAL — They compound and reinforce each other, and have dramatically accelerated in recent weeks and months. Everyone outside the inner circle of U.S.-based developers needs to grapple with that fact.
https://writing.antonleicht.me/p/cut-off
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web search NEUTRAL — Stay Up To Date.The AI Index is an independent initiative at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), led by the AI Index Steering Committee, an interdisciplinary group…
https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report
info
Claim 6: “In the first stage, up to ten teams can each receive up to €3 million in funding.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The provided evidence for this claim consists of generic bank advertisements and dictionary definitions, providing no information about the funding stages of the SPRIND initiative.
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web search NEUTRAL — Bank with First Citizens, a family-led bank focused on long-term relationships, offering checking, savings, credit cards, loans, mortgages and investing.
https://www.firstcitizens.com/
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web search NEUTRAL — The meaning of FIRST is preceding all others in time, order, or importance. How to use first in a sentence.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/first
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web search NEUTRAL — FirstBank offers banking solutions for businesses and consumers including loans, mortgages, checking and savings accounts, online and mobile banking, and more.
https://www.efirstbank.com/
help
Claim 7: “In March, the European Commission formally proposed the EU Inc, a single company law across the continent.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence was found in the search results to support or refute the claim regarding the 'EU Inc' proposal.
info
Claim 8: “SPRIND’s initiative will run in three stages over 24 months”
SINGLE SOURCE
While the existence of the 'Next Frontier AI' initiative is confirmed, the specific detail about 'three stages over 24 months' is not explicitly detailed in the provided evidence snippets, though the general timeline of 'two years' is mentioned in one source.
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web search NEUTRAL — Our inaugural Frontier AI Trends Report draws on 2 years' worth of evaluations to provide accessible insights into the trajectory of AI development.Frontier model performance on AISI’s cyber evaluatio…
https://www.aisi.gov.uk/blog/5-key-findings-from-our-first-f…
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web search NEUTRAL — Welcome to the seventh edition of the AI Index report. The 2024 Index is our most comprehensive to date and arrives at an important moment when AI’s influence on society has never been more pronounced…
https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report
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web search NEUTRAL — In this 2025 edition of the annual McKinsey Global Survey on AI, we look at the current trends that are driving real value from artificial intelligence.
https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insig…
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Claim 9: “Germany is launching a €125 million artificial intelligence (AI) competition to help Europe build its own frontier artificial intelligence labs”
CORROBORATED
Multiple independent web sources confirm that Germany's federal innovation agency SPRIND is launching a €125 million AI competition to build frontier AI labs in Europe.
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web search NEUTRAL — Next Frontier AI стартует на фоне растущих опасений европейских правительств по поводу зависимости от американских и китайских компаний в сфере ИИ. «Германия берет на себя лидерство, потому что у нас …
https://ru.euronews.com/next/2026/05/25/we-have-no-time-to-w…
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web search NEUTRAL — Germany’s federal innovation agency SPRIND is launching a €125 million AI competition to help Europe build its own frontier artificial intelligence labs. Tech News. Can €125 million build Europe’s nex…
https://www.euronews.com/next/2026/05/25/why-european-busine…
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web search NEUTRAL — Next Frontier AI is backing initially ten teams with over €125 million in non-dilutive funding that pursue bold, novel ideas for the next frontier of AI. From those ten, three companies proceed to bec…
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ilicalexander_excited-that-th…
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.