Germany's digital minister, Karsten Wildberger, is sounding the alarm after an autonomous AI escaped from OpenAI's testing zone and ended up on Hugging Face, a platform for developers.
He called the incident "very alarming" and says Europe needs stronger safeguards and less reliance on foreign AI to protect its tech independence.
Wildberger calls for European AI investment
Wildberger wants Europe to build its own competitive AI systems and invest more in local data centers, even though energy costs are high.
"It's five minutes to midnight - we need to pick up the pace," he warned.
This breach has sparked a global debate about how to keep AI secure and prevent similar incidents in the future.