EU antitrust chief targets AI market power at Big Tech CEOs

Europe’s top antitrust regulator, Teresa Ribera, is meeting major Big Tech CEOs in San Francisco as the EU digs into potential AI market power across the full stack. Ribera plans talks with Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and Amazon’s Andy Jassy. The European Commission says it is examining AI chatbots, the training data behind them, and the cloud infrastructure that delivers AI services—areas where dominant firms could favor their own products and shut out rivals. The move follows prior investigations into Google and Meta, plus EU warnings that powerful companies may use their platforms to privilege their AI services. At the same time, EU policymakers are pushing back on U.S. pressure to weaken the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA), arguing the rules were democratically debated and already benefit consumers and businesses, including American companies. Beyond competition concerns, the article highlights a wider transatlantic dispute: the U.S. has criticized the DSA/DMA as unfair to American firms, while senior EU lawmakers say Washington’s claims are not negotiations, but political messaging. The European Parliament is expected to vote this week on advancing a 2025 EU-U.S. transatlantic trade deal. For crypto traders, the key theme is AI market power and regulatory scrutiny of Big Tech’s infrastructure. That can shift tech-sector risk appetite and liquidity around “AI winners,” which sometimes spills into broader risk assets like majors—though this is not a direct crypto rule change. Overall, it reads as a market-structure and compliance headline rather than an immediate on-chain catalyst.