Netherlands on the AI world stage

While American tech giants like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft dominate the AI market, China is also making its presence felt—first with DeepSeek, then with the new language model KIMI K2. In Europe, however, it remains relatively quiet. How is the Netherlands performing on the global AI stage?

A Decade of Silence

Indeed, it has been quiet for far too long. For over a decade, Dutch experts have been advocating for serious AI budgets—with little success. The Rutte-III cabinet had promising words in 2019, but these turned out to be mostly a redistribution of old funds, without new structural financing. Disappointment was widespread, and the “brain drain” of talent continued unabated.

The business sector was also slow to act. When I (Meike Nauta), having graduated cum laude in AI in 2018, went looking for a challenging job in the Netherlands, company responses often didn’t go beyond: “We still have some Excel sheets—can you do something with those?” A stark contrast to American big tech, which had already reached out to me. But did I really have to move to Silicon Valley to make an impact?

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The Economic Potential

I stayed in the Netherlands, and since the arrival of ChatGPT, Dutch politics and the business world finally seem to be waking up. And rightly so, because the numbers don’t lie:

• Every euro invested in AI R&D yields the Netherlands €1.50 to €5 in additional economic prosperity.
• Dutch companies achieve an average return of €4.20 for every euro invested in AI.

The potential is enormous! But we don’t have mega data centers, nor access to mountains of training data like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft.

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The Strength of the Netherlands

But where there’s no brute strength, there must be cleverness—and that’s where we excel. The Netherlands has:

• Three times more AI talent than the EU average (#1 in the EU).
• The highest digital skills in Europe.
• A lat and pragmatic work culture that aligns with the fast pace of AI developments.
• A national algorithm register with over 1,000 publications.
• AI specialists leading in Explainable AI, interpretable AI, fairness, and Responsible AI.
• The world’s #1 position in the Global Index on Responsible AI.

AI: Not Speed, but Direction

The call for AI safety continues to grow, even from big tech itself. And this is where the Netherlands can take a leading role—not by building ever-larger, inscrutable black boxes, but by steering toward responsible tools. A true “co-pilot,” indeed.

The Opportunity for Europe, with the Netherlands at the Helm

This is the opportunity for Europe, with the Netherlands leading the way, to show what we’re worth. With our smart people, we must continue to develop creative and responsible AI solutions!

How do you see the role of the Netherlands in this context?