A report commissioned by Amazon Web Services has found that skills shortages and regulatory uncertainty are holding back AI adoption across Europe, with 38% of the continent's startups now considering a move abroad. The figure, drawn from a survey of founders and tech executives, lands as the EU's AI Act is still being phased in and as member states wrestle with how to enforce it. Sasha Rubel, AWS's head of generative AI policy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, is expected to brief policymakers on the findings in the coming weeks.
The 38% figure
The number is stark, even if the report's sponsor has a commercial stake in the outcome. AWS sells cloud infrastructure that many of these startups rely on, so a Europe that chases away its AI talent is bad for business. But the underlying complaint — that rules are unclear and the right engineers are hard to find — echoes what founders have been saying for years.
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The report doesn't break down which countries are losing the most startups, and it doesn't name specific companies. What it does do is put a number on a feeling that has been building since the AI Act's final text was agreed. For a founder weighing where to build, the choice is increasingly between a regulator that's still writing the rules and one that's already welcoming AI companies with open arms.
Why the report matters for crypto
This is an AI story on its face, but the same forces apply to crypto startups. They face the same talent shortage, plus a layer of financial regulation — MiCA, AML rules, licensing requirements — that AI companies don't have to deal with. If 38% of all European startups are looking at the exit, the rate for crypto projects is likely higher.
That matters for liquidity. When a crypto team relocates to Switzerland, the UAE or Singapore, it tends to move its treasury and its trading volume with it. European exchanges could see thinner order books and fewer euro-denominated pairs as a result. The report is a leading indicator of that shift, even though it never mentions crypto.
There's also a talent angle. The projects that combine AI and blockchain — decentralized compute networks, AI agents, verifiable inference — need people who understand both fields. That cross-disciplinary pool is small, and Europe is struggling to keep it. If the continent can't hold onto those builders, the next wave of AI-crypto innovation will happen in the US and Asia.
What happens next
The report is a lobbying tool as much as a research document. AWS wants lighter AI rules, and it's using its own data to make the case. The question is whether EU policymakers respond with streamlined rules or dig in. The European Commission has said it will publish guidance on AI Act implementation later this year, and that document will be the first real test of whether the message lands.
For crypto specifically, the next concrete thing to watch is how the EU's crypto regulators handle the overlap between MiCA and the AI Act's transparency requirements. Blockchain-based AI systems that rely on public data could get caught in the crossfire. If the guidance is strict, expect more European projects to follow the 38% and leave.
