HELSINKI, Nov 17 (Reuters) – Europe is currently too reliant on China for technologies and should be wary of this dependency, Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin said on Thursday.
“Let’s be honest, we have vulnerabilities already. We see it when we look at chips or semiconductors, we are too dependent,” Marin said, speaking at Slush, an annual startup event in Helsinki.
Marin said Europe had lessons to learn from its dependency on Russian energy that led to the ongoing energy crisis in Europe, as well as the lack of medical supplies seen during the COVID pandemic.
“We have to make sure that we have the capabilities and the knowledge to build these technologies and not be dependent on China and other authoritarian countries that have a different logic than democratic countries have,” Marin said.
Marin urged Europe to invest more in its own development of new fields of technology such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing.
“I really worry about this technology part because I fear we are making the same mistakes with technology and digital solutions and also raw materials we need to build these technologies,” she said.
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Reporting by Anne Kauranen Editing by Terje Solsvik and Mark Potter
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