The Anthropic export ban has ignited debate amongst European founders and investors. Are we about to lose access to the most cutting-edge US foundational AI models? It's time to unpack the implications for funders and investors.
Too few people fully understand the implications of "sovereign AI" and the technologies surrounding it, especially if entrepreneurs and investors want to build in this space.
'Sovereign AI' is increasingly becoming a heady and complex combination of defence, national security, industrial resilience, access to compute, energy, chips, capital, and strategic autonomy.
But while governments, investors and the media talk it up, the term can mean different things to different people. Where can domestic AI models take over from US foundational ones? Do we have enough national compute? What about the future of high-performance chips for training and inference? How do we balance this with the use of US and Chinese tech platforms?
For entrepreneurs and investors, the stakes are significant, but the debate requires a deeper understanding than many discussions currently provide.
Pathfounders has convened a panel discussion at Google Cloud's office on 16 July to explore what Sovereign AI really means, where the commercial opportunities are emerging, and what the UK and Europe need to build.
Attendees will learn
• What "sovereign AI" means today
• Why sovereign AI is becoming a geopolitical issue
• Where the commercial opportunities are emerging
• How founders can position themselves
• Where industrial AI fits
• How compute, chips, quantum, and photonics are reshaping the economics
• What investors are looking for
• How Europe and the UK can compete
This event is for founders, investors, policymakers, operators and anyone trying to understand where AI, capital and strategic technology are heading next.
Agenda
18:00 — Registrations & Networking
18:30 — Panel Discussion
Understanding Sovereign AI
19:15 — Speed Tables
Structured roundtable discussions meet speed networking
→ Join topic-led discussions
→ Rotate tables each round
→ Meet a new group of peers every time
20:15 — Open Networking
Continue the conversations
21:00 — Close
Speakers
Speakers include:
• James Wise, Partner at Balderton Capital and Chair of the news UK government-backed Sovereign AI Fund, who will bring an investor and policy perspective on how the UK can strategically back important AI companies.
• Ben Peters, Co-Founder and CEO of Cogna, a leading AI company building for physical industries, who will explore how AI is moving beyond software into manufacturing, infrastructure and the industrial economy.
• Vaysh Kewada, Co-Founder and CEO of Salience Labs, which is building low-latency optical switches to solve interconnect for next-generation AI, will discuss why the hardware layer is central to any serious conversation about sovereign capability.
• Carlos Munoz Ferrandis - Co-founder & COO at Alinia AI, a company developing runtime regulatory guardrails for high-stakes AI Agents. Carlos will discuss the challenge of ensuring runtime compliance of autonomous agents at scale in different jurisdictions.
Thank You To Our Event Partners
Why Attend
Understand what Sovereign AI actually is and where the commercial opportunities are emerging
Meet a highly curated group of founders, investors, and experienced operators
Experience structured networking that actually leads to meaningful connections
Critical infrastructure is under pressure. From ageing energy grids to overstretched inspection regimes, the systems that keep society running are increasingly vulnerable, and the industry is running out of time to catch up.
In this in-person live podcast recording for Pathfounders, hosted by PT1, Oliver Lichtenstein, CEO of Beagle Systems, will unpack how autonomous drone technology is moving from defence-adjacent curiosity to mission-critical infrastructure tool, and what that means for the founders, operators and investors building in this space. Join Pathfounders Founder and tech journalism legend Mike Butcher for this live event, exploring how a founder is rewriting the rules of infrastructure resilience with hardware, autonomy and scale.
This fireside chat will explore:
Oliver's journey to founding Beagle Systems and scaling in a complex regulatory landscape
Why drones are becoming the default tool for critical infrastructure inspection
How autonomy and AI are transforming what's possible in the field
What the next wave of infrastructure resilience technology actually looks like
The evening combines a panel discussion, and structured Speed Tables when you will have the opportunity to meet a curated group of founders, investors and tech startup ecosystem operators over structured conversations. This will be followed by open networking.
Agenda
18:00 — Doors open
18:30 — Live podcast recording with Mike Butcher and Oliver Lichtenstein
19:15 — Speed Tables
20:00 — Open networking and nibbles/drinks served
21:00 — End
Thank You To Our Event Partners
Learn More abut our Sponsors:
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