At the G7 Summit on Wednesday, global leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed concerns that the United States could abruptly restrict their countries' access to leading American AI models. During a lunch meeting with G7 leaders and top AI executives—such as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and President Donald Trump—Macron warned that if the U.S. "from one day to the next can turn off the switch," it would not only harm the economies of European customers but also damage the AI companies themselves. These remarks came just days after the Trump administration blocked Anthropic from exporting its newest Mythos 5 and Fable 5 models, citing national security grounds. The decision followed Amazon's notification to the White House that certain safety guardrails could be bypassed. Although cybersecurity experts have argued that the capabilities flagged by the government are also present in models that remain freely available, including from OpenAI, Anthropic's models remain frozen.

This episode has exposed a risk that many international companies have been grappling with: any company or government building on U.S. AI infrastructure must now contend with the possibility that access could be revoked overnight, for reasons they may never be told. Prime Minister Modi also voiced concern over Trump's move to block Anthropic's model, according to reporting from the Financial Times, adding that democratic nations must have unfettered access to top AI models to protect critical infrastructure. "Digital sovereignty is not just about market competition or any one company or nation," he said. "It’s about who controls the foundational technology that will shape our economic security and national sovereignty for decades to come."

During the meeting, G7 leaders also discussed creating a "trusted partners" scheme that would grant non-U.S. nations access to advanced AI models from companies like Anthropic and OpenAI. The goal is to maintain an open trade network that bypasses U.S. restrictions. Both countries and companies could qualify as trusted partners, provided they use the models to strengthen defenses against rivals like China. However, it remains unclear how far this trusted partner scheme would extend, or whether it offers a solution for a startup in Paris or Bangalore whose product suddenly breaks without warning. Regardless, Macron noted that it would make sense for Washington to support such a scheme and ensure broader Mythos access. Nobody would want to purchase U.S. AI access if it could vanish overnight. These comments come as Europe and other non-U.S. countries push for AI sovereignty—an increasingly difficult case to make when American models continue to pull ahead and no one wants to be left out.