European savings are increasingly exposed to—and helping finance—the expansion of artificial intelligence in the United States.
Eurozone households hold around €440 billion in US technology companies, including Nvidia and Alphabet, according to European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde.
Speaking in Vienna on Monday, Lagarde warned that European savings risk paying for the US AI boom without Europe receiving a comparable share of the economic benefits.
“The companies are being built elsewhere,” she said. “Last year the United States produced 59 notable AI models, and China produced 35. France and the United Kingdom produced one each.”
Europe does not lack money. The problem is getting more of it to companies that can grow.
Eurozone households held nearly €10 trillion in bank deposits as of May 2026, according to a new ECB analysis published on Tuesday. They keep around one-third of their financial assets in deposits, compared with 11% among US households. Around 80% of eurozone households own no shares, bonds or investment funds.
The ECB found that limited resources, knowledge gaps, low levels of trust and concerns about risk discourage many Europeans from investing. More than 60% of eurozone households held most of their wealth in property, while around a quarter relied mainly on bank deposits. About 10% invested indirectly through pension and insurance products, while just 4% held a substantial share of their wealth directly in financial markets.
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Those in Europe who want exposure to AI frequently invest in American technology companies, often through investment funds and pensions.
Is investing in US technology necessarily a problem?
Jeremie Peloso, chief strategist for Europe at BCA Research, told Euronews Business that investing in US technology was not necessarily a problem for European households. “US tech has been outperforming European indices for the past 10 years,” he said, adding that international investments can help savers spread their risks.
He also said that a weaker euro has sometimes increased the returns made by euro-based investors on dollar-denominated assets, he added.
However, he warned that the US technology sector had become highly concentrated, leaving investors exposed to a relatively small group of companies affected by many of the same market forces.
Ben Barringer, head of technology research at Quilter Cheviot, said European capital had moved abroad because many of the world’s leading technology companies had been built and expanded outside Europe, offering stronger growth prospects and investment returns.
How does European money finance US AI?
Buying an existing US technology share does not provide fresh money to the company. However, strong investor demand can support its valuation and make it easier to raise capital by issuing new shares.
When European retail investors buy newly issued shares, as happened when SpaceX invited them to participate in its IPO in June, they provide money that the company can use for investment.
But IPOs alone are unlikely to provide enough capital to sustain the breakneck pace of investment by AI hyperscalers. The largest technology companies have therefore also been borrowing heavily through the bond market.
Major hyperscalers are expected to spend more than $1 trillion (€870bn) on capital investment by 2028, according to an ECB analysis. This includes spending on data centres, advanced chips, electricity supplies and network infrastructure.
Lagarde said major US hyperscalers issued more than $100bn (€87bn) in bonds last year and now account for close to one-tenth of new euro-denominated bond issuance by non-financial companies.
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Five large US hyperscalers have around €40 billion in euro-denominated bonds outstanding, according to the ECB. European funds, insurers and pension schemes that buy these bonds are directly lending money to American technology companies.
This borrowing can also have wider consequences. Heavy US bond issuance can contribute to higher global yields, while long-term interest rates in the eurozone often move alongside US rates.
“Europe will bear part of the price of this boom in its own borrowing costs,” Lagarde said. “The question is whether it will also get the growth that goes with it.”
Europe’s AI investment gap
Rapid AI adoption could raise eurozone productivity by as much as 4% over a decade, according to ECB estimates.
But Europe remains far behind the US in the infrastructure needed to develop and run AI. Lagarde said the United States hosts around 75% of global AI computing capacity, compared with approximately 5% in Europe.
The European Commission estimates that the gap between demand for data-centre capacity and available supply in the EU could reach 19 gigawatts by 2036. Closing it could cost as much as €600 billion.
Eurozone companies are expected to devote around 10% of their investment to AI in 2026, while AI-related borrowing accounted for approximately one-quarter of the first-quarter increase in credit to companies, according to ECB estimates.
Europe has promising private AI companies, but ordinary investors have much easier access to America’s listed technology giants.
“There is no shortage of capital in Europe, simply a problem of channelling funds,” Peloso said.
He added that Europe also had a considerable number of technology companies, but relatively few were publicly traded. This leaves retail investors—and funds restricted to public markets—with a limited choice of European technology investments.
Mistral illustrates both Europe’s potential and its investment problem. The French AI company raised €3 billion last week in the largest equity fundraising by a European technology company, but ordinary savers could not participate directly because its shares are not publicly traded.
Barringer said simply encouraging investors to direct more money towards European AI would treat the symptom rather than the underlying cause.
“The challenge is not simply a lack of available capital, but creating the conditions for more world-class European companies to emerge and compete globally,” he said.
That would require deeper venture-capital markets, greater willingness to finance higher-risk businesses and rules that support innovation while maintaining appropriate oversight.
“Ultimately, investment will follow opportunity,” Barringer added.
Can Europe redirect more of its savings?
The EU’s main response is the Savings and Investments Union. It is intended to make it easier for households to invest and for European companies to obtain funding across national borders.
Proposed measures include simpler, potentially tax-advantaged investment accounts, changes to supplementary pensions and efforts to reduce the cost of operating across different European financial markets.
The EU has also introduced its Listing Act, which is designed to make it cheaper and easier for companies to go public. It includes simpler listing documents and rules allowing founders to retain greater control after their companies enter the stock market.
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These reforms could help more European technology companies grow and eventually become accessible to ordinary investors. But they cannot guarantee that European households will choose them over American companies offering stronger prospects.
Peloso said channelling more savings into businesses would be a multi-year process requiring easier regulation, a more favourable environment for start-ups, deeper venture-capital and private-equity markets, and stronger incentives for households to invest.
Barringer similarly argued that policy should focus on building stronger companies rather than simply directing savings towards a preferred sector.
“If the underlying foundations are not strong enough to support innovation, simply directing more savings towards the sector is unlikely to solve the problem,” he said.
Europe therefore appears to have the capital—and a growing number of promising technology companies. Its challenge is to help those businesses expand, become publicly accessible and offer investors opportunities compelling enough to compete with America’s technology giants.