Ursula von der Leyen

Ursula von der Leyen (born 1958), a German physician and former defence minister, has been president of the European Commission since 2019. Her two terms bracket the entire arc of Europe’s AI policy: from drafting the world’s first comprehensive AI law to racing to make sure the continent that regulated the technology can also build it.

From the AI Act to InvestAI

Her first Commission proposed and shepherded the EU AI Act, the risk-based rulebook adopted in 2024 that bans some uses outright and imposes strict duties on “high-risk” and general-purpose systems. But by the February 2025 AI Action Summit in Paris, her emphasis had visibly shifted. There she launched InvestAI, an initiative to mobilise €200 billion for European AI — including a €20 billion fund for four “AI gigafactories,” public-private supercomputing hubs she likened to “a CERN for AI” — and declared that the global AI race “is far from over.”

Rewriting her own rulebook

In late 2025 her Commission went further, proposing a “digital omnibus” to simplify EU tech law — including delaying and softening parts of the AI Act’s high-risk regime before they ever took effect. Industry, which had lobbied hard under the banner of competitiveness, welcomed the retreat; civil-society groups accused her of gutting hard-won protections at Big Tech’s request. Von der Leyen’s framing is that Europe’s values and Europe’s competitiveness must advance together — and that a rulebook nobody can comply with serves neither.