European savings are increasingly flowing into the American artificial intelligence boom, raising questions about who ultimately benefits from the continent's capital. Eurozone households hold roughly €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 money is helping finance AI expansion in the United States without Europe receiving a comparable share of the economic rewards. "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."
The problem is not a lack of money. 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.
For those who do invest, exposure to AI often means buying American technology stocks, either directly or through funds and pension portfolios. But is that necessarily a problem? Jeremie Peloso, chief strategist for Europe at BCA Research, told Euronews Business that investing in US technology was not inherently bad 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. A weaker euro has sometimes boosted returns for euro-based investors holding dollar-denominated assets, he noted.
However, Peloso 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 European money finances US AI
Buying an existing US technology share does not provide fresh money to the company, but 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. 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 s...
