BRUSSELS — The appointment of Siemens’ chair as a European Commission adviser on industrial AI is triggering a backlash in Brussels, weeks after the German engineering giant helped secure a rollback of the EU’s AI rules.
“My first reaction was just: Wow,” said Kim van Sparrentak, a Dutch lawmaker who led the work on the AI file for the Greens in the European Parliament.
“They fought hard against AI rules for themselves, they lobby against technological sovereignty, and now they get to decide how we are going to integrate AI,” she said.
On Wednesday, the Commission appointed Jim Hagemann Snabe, Siemens’ chair and a former CEO of software multinational SAP, as an adviser to President Ursula von der Leyen and tech chief Henna Virkkunen on how to boost Europe’s use of AI in industry.
