New law puts European biotechs at the coalface of AI safety debate

Firms with an interest in artificial intelligence (AI), such as Microsoft and Nvidia, led US stock markets to new heights last year, as investors sought to price in imagined productivity gains from new AI technologies.

One industry that has been racing to take advantage of AI is the life sciences, with biotech and pharma companies looking to use the technology in a range of efforts from drug discovery through to clinical testing and beyond.

Those efforts could now be hampered by legislation passed by the European Parliament, as lawmakers fret over a range of concerns from election interference to biosecurity.