Comment by msdz

> Has this been just pure lack of funding and infra?

For the most part, yes.

France and Germany are the two biggest EU economies. France has well, Mistral, and we here have a government-funded VC entity that is way too proud [1] to be able to offer a whopping… €125 million (<$150 M USD) for helping European researchers achieve new SOTA in sovereign models. And that sum is not even going to a single challenge winner, it'll be split up among multiple recipients. Don't get me wrong, this is a cool first step, or rather, would have been one about three to four years ago.

It's a pity, really.

[1] (in German) https://www.sprind.org/worte/magazin/verkuendung-next-fronti...