ISTANBUL

French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday urged the UK and France to catch up with the US and China while warning against dependency.

"The UK and France are probably the two nations to be part of the race and leading the race in Europe, but we are lagging behind both the US and China," Macron said during the "AI Action: From Science to Growth" meeting held at Imperial College London as part of his state visit.

He urged Europe to "de-risk" its models and reduce dependency on the US or Chinese solutions to be part of the competition.

Reiterating the need to look at AI as a "global trend," Macron called for increased efforts in science, training, providing ecosystems, and increasing the number of startups while opting for a European approach.

"I don't want to decouple Europe, in the European perspective, from the rest of the world. It doesn't make sense. But we should look very lucidly at the world that is ours today. Are we sure that all the countries in this world will be super cooperative with us on the day you have a breakthrough innovation?" Macron further noted.

He said that "nobody" would have imagined what is happening today on tariffs and trade, warning that they are also "too much dependent in terms of computing capacities."

"If I follow properly the narrative of the Brexit, the whole story was to say it would be much easier to fix our problems without the EU. I'm not sure you fixed migration and financial issues post-Brexit much better than with the EU. I'm sure about one thing, having closer links is the best way to fix our critical issues on research, science, AI, and so on," Macron said.

Macron arrived in the UK on Tuesday for the first state visit by an EU head of state since Brexit.

His trip includes a range of diplomatic and cultural engagements, including a UK-France business reception and a special event at the British Museum on Wednesday.