The European Union is set to formally join the US-initiated Pax Silica initiative, an alliance focusing on AI chip supply chain coordination and export controls designed to curb China’s technological advancement. The UK, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia plus three EU members including Greece, Finland and Sweden have joined the pact earlier.

EU countries hold split attitudes toward the accession. Germany, Italy and the Netherlands back the move to align closely with Washington, while France strongly opposes the deal, warning it will cause Europe’s technological colonization and run counter to the bloc’s pursuit of technological sovereignty. After rounds of negotiations, the EU reaches an agreement to join and plans to purchase at least 40 billion US dollars worth of American AI chips. The US promised the Pax Silica declaration carries no legal force and will not interfere with EU domestic regulatory rules. Meanwhile, the EU releases supporting policies to boost local chip production and retain sensitive cloud services within Europe to offset potential sovereignty losses.

The US keeps tightening chip export curbs and closing regulatory loopholes to restrict high-end chip shipments to China. Nevertheless, such restrictive measures fail to slow down China’s domestic chip innovation. Chinese authorities have repeatedly stressed that unilateral tech barriers violate market principles. Isolationist policies cannot hold back China’s scientific innovation and damage the interests of the whole global industrial chain.