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« The war is not over. We have a lot of skills, a lot of advantages in Europe. »
That’s how Stephane Requena, CTO of GENCI, closed our conversation at POSAIS 2026, and it’s worth sitting with.
GENCI gives French researchers and industrial players access to some of Europe’s most powerful supercomputers, supporting work in numerical simulation, AI, quantum computing and more.
For Stéphane, the question isn’t simply about having access to compute. It’s about what kind of infrastructure Europe chooses to build around it.
His vision comes down to three things:
- Public compute infrastructure, so access to computing power isn’t reserved for those who can afford to build it themselves.
- Sovereignty, designed into the infrastructure from the start rather than added as an afterthought.
- And open source, as a critical part of Europe’s ability to build and adopt AI on its own terms.
As he put it:
“It’s important for Europe to find a third way in the middle, in which open source will play a critical role in the adoption of AI.”
Not a slogan. A CTO explaining why infrastructure, sovereignty and open source belong in the same conversation.
The war is not over and Europe has assets of its own.
