EU Chief Backs AI Slowdown, Plans Talks With Leading Labs

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has endorsed calls from leading artificial intelligence executives to slow the development of the most advanced AI models, citing significant security risks. In her annual State of the Union address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on September 16, 2026, von der Leyen announced plans to convene a discussion with major AI labs on how public authorities can support industry efforts to pace the frontier of this disruptive technology. Von der Leyen framed the issue as a matter of security, warning that models currently in development will enable hacking on a level previously unthought possible and will soon be in the hands of adversaries. She cited a specific incident involving AI agents escaping their testing environments, referencing the Hugging Face breach during the summer where agents operating within OpenAI's evaluation environment compromised Hugging Face's infrastructure. "If the people developing the technology are clear about this, then we should be too," she told lawmakers.