Beyond safety, European Council President António Costa said in his invitation letter to Friday’s meeting in Dublin that a key topic will be how to make Europe less dependent on the U.S. and China for the technology underpinning artificial intelligence.

But the EU has also delayed the infrastructure buildout necessary for Europe to be competitive, by pushing back plans to support seven AI compute hubs across Europe.

The department running that €30 billion investment project announced at the end of October that it would extend the deadline for consortia to express their interest in building these hubs that include massive AI data center projects in different countries.

The stated reason for the postponement was “to give member states the necessary time to complete their national budgetary process and submit financial commitments.”

It was the second delay in a row, after the initial November deadline moved to February.

Jan Kavalírek, who had a brief stint last year as the Czech government’s AI envoy and is involved in the Czech bid, posted on LinkedIn: “Apparently, some paperwork wasn't submitted on time,” alongside a shrugging emoji.

“I think it’s very important, that it’s essential that we keep some timeline and condition that were presented at the beginning,” he told POLITICO.

“Of course, this also applies to the member states, which should be able to keep up with the deadlines and deliver all necessary documents in time to Brussels.”