Teresa Ribera Meets Google, Meta, OpenAI, Amazon CEOs; EU Steps Up AI Antitrust Scrutiny

NEW DELHI/BRUSSELS/SAN FRANCISCO: European Union competition chief Teresa Ribera is holding a series of high-level meetings with top Silicon Valley executives during a visit to the United States this week, as Brussels intensifies its scrutiny of the growing concentration of power in the artificial intelligence sector.

According to a European Commission agenda item cited by Reuters, Ribera is meeting Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, while Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is also scheduled to meet her. The meetings mark a rare face-to-face engagement between the EU’s top antitrust regulator and the executives at the centre of the global AI race.

The meetings come as the European Commission broadens its focus beyond traditional digital market dominance to examine how control is being consolidated across the AI ecosystem. Ribera has recently said EU regulators are looking at the “entire AI stack,” including chatbots, training data and cloud infrastructure that underpin the development and deployment of advanced AI systems.

EU officials are increasingly concerned that a small group of dominant technology companies may be leveraging their control over multiple layers of the AI value chain — from foundational models and computing infrastructure to distribution through existing consumer platforms — in ways that could limit competition and reinforce market power.

Particular attention is being paid to the role of cloud infrastructure in AI development, as providers such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure supply much of the computing capacity needed to train and run large AI models. While no new enforcement action was announced alongside Ribera’s visit, the meetings signal the Commission’s growing interest in how AI-related markets are evolving and whether existing competition rules remain sufficient.

Ribera’s visit also comes amid continuing friction between Brussels and Washington over digital regulation. U.S. officials have repeatedly criticised EU competition actions and digital rules as disproportionately affecting American technology companies, while the European Union has maintained that its laws apply equally to all firms operating in its market.

Despite those tensions, the meetings underline the EU’s increasingly assertive role in shaping the regulatory framework around artificial intelligence, as Brussels seeks to balance innovation with competition safeguards in one of the world’s fastest-moving technology sectors.