Ursula von der Leyen is President of the European Commission, the executive of the European Union. The Commission implements the EU AI Act through the EU AI Office, and von der Leyen assigns the technology portfolio to Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen, whose mission letter from her is dated 1 December 2024 (Source: commission.europa.eu).
AI investment
Von der Leyen launched the €200 billion InvestAI fund, which includes a €20 billion AI Gigafactories Initiative for four to five large European data centres; a 2026 scenario series lists it among the real events of 2025 on which its early chapters build (Europe 2031: What Getting AI Wrong Means for Us).
Frontier AI pacing
In her annual State of the Union address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on September 16, 2026, von der Leyen endorsed calls from US frontier-laboratory leaders to slow development. "As the frontier models become more capable, these risks have come more sharply into focus. Models being developed will allow hacking on a level we never thought possible. And they will soon be in the hands of adversaries who see the world very differently from us," she said, pointing to recent incidents of rogue AI agents and to developers' warnings. "CEOs of the most advanced companies tell us that it is time to slow down on the self-recursive models. To pace the frontier. If the people developing the technology are clear, then we should be too." She said: "I will invite the main frontier labs for a discussion on how we can support ongoing industry efforts to pace the frontier" (Source: reuters.com).
She said the EU's AI rules put Europe in a position to shape global efforts on the risks, and that Europe would work with Canada, the United Kingdom and other partners on model evaluation, verification and AI security. The same account set her position against President Donald Trump's dismissal of AI safety concerns (Source: reuters.com). The speech followed Dario Amodei's September 12 essay calling for pacing (We Must Pace the Frontier (Amodei, September 2026)). Her framing, support for industry efforts, differs from the position of Germany's digital affairs ministry two days earlier that halting AI development is not a viable option for Europe. See Coordinated slowdown proposals compared.
Von der Leyen signed "A Call for Control of Frontier AI Models," the joint statement launched on September 21, 2026 by Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, as President of the European Commission. The statement calls for mandatory pre-deployment testing and independent evaluation by companies, coordinated common standards and shared reporting of serious safety incidents among governments and regional organisations, and exploration by UN member states of an international institution able to set standards, enable verification and convene states when capability thresholds are crossed; it does not call for a pause (A Call for Control of Frontier AI Models (joint statement, September 2026); A Call for Control of Frontier AI Models (2026)).
In the same address she proposed a social-media ban for children under 13 and no personal accounts for those under 15, with details due on September 17, 2026 (Source: reuters.com). The Commission adopted the proposal on September 17 as the EU KIDS Act, which also sets design obligations for AI companions and general conversational chatbots accessible to minors. It builds on the recommendations of a special panel on child safety online that von der Leyen announced in her 2025 State of the Union address; the panel's co-chairs presented their recommendations to her in July 2026 (Proposal for an EU KIDS Act, COM(2026) 681 — Source Summary). She said: "Our KIDS Act is reversing the burden of proof - it is for platforms to show they are safe by design" (Source: digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu).
Relationships
- related: Henna Virkkunen — Executive Vice-President for tech sovereignty, security and democracy.
- related: EU AI Office, EU AI Act (Regulation 2024/1689), European Parliament
- related: EU KIDS Act (proposed Regulation on the protection of minors online) — child online-safety proposal adopted by her Commission on September 17, 2026.
- related: Coordinated slowdown proposals compared, We Must Pace the Frontier (Amodei, September 2026)
- related: A Call for Control of Frontier AI Models (2026) — signatory.