People are probably assuming that the trends from the last few decades continue. The EU fumbled semiconductors, production went to Asia. The EU fumbled the software revolution, the successes mainly came from the US. They fumbled the transition to smartphones despite the Nokia advantage. They missed tablets; seemed like they just didn't have the industrial vigour to make a serious attempt.

The safe money is they are going to be an also-ran for the AI revolution. They did manage to force Apple to switch from using lightening connectors to USB though so their wins can't just be laughed off. Maybe they'll surprise us but it'd be a welcome change from their usual routine.

> Why people always dismiss the European option?

Mistral is good for many tasks where you do not need SOTA or near SOTA performance. They cannot compete if you do.

It’s not top of the line and mostly not open source

Europe is always 10 years ahead in all theoretical aspects.

Then they need money.

So most of the talent flee or get bought, typical example in machine learning space is huggingface or fchollet.

Then European government plays catch-up and offer subventions, but at the same time makes rules to make sure companies don't threaten US dominance, or Asian manufacturing.

Mistral is typically playing catch the subsidy game.

Europe is constructed so that it can't win, but can "pick" the winner between scylla and charybdis, pest and cholera.

For a lot of people in the world Europe = USA

Europe in general is a wide term. Like, UK is in Europe and is a surveillance state.