Mark Surman on Create a global institute for AI, simil…

Mark Surman

Mozilla Foundation president

The idea of just creating a bunch of big companies with venture capital behind them and they fight it out isn’t the only paradigm, [...] incent researchers to work together and you get quite naturally this idea of the CERN for AI, [...] Not because you going and build one Large Hadron Collider, [...] but because you just pool digital resources that people are already spending money on. [...] If you put a different technical and economic lens on how you organise the work there, Europe and potentially your collaborators are well-situated both to catch up and to leap ahead.

AI Verified source (Feb 21, 2025)

11mo ago

Policy proposals and claims

Create a global institute for AI, similar to CERN

votes For

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AI Verified The quote directly discusses “this idea of the CERN for AI” and frames it positively as an alternative to competing VC-backed firms, arguing for pooling digital resources and collaborative research. That clearly implies support for creating an AI institute modeled on CERN. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

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AI Verified The quote positively proposes “this idea of the CERN for AI” and explains how to “pool digital resources” and organize collaboration, which clearly supports creating such an institute. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

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AI Verified Verified: the cited Euronews article published on 2025-02-21 contains all four segments of the stored excerpt, in order, and attributes them to Mark Surman. The first appears at line 680, the CERN for AI segment at 685, the Large Hadron Collider sentence at 686, and the concluding catch-up/leap-ahead sentence at 691. The stored quote is a stitched excerpt with [...] omissions, but its wording matches the source page. ([euronews.com](https://www.euronews.com/next/2025/02/21/how-europe-could-leap-ahead-in-the-global-ai-race-according-to-mozillas-president)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

Disputed The Euronews article published on February 21, 2025 does attribute this passage to Mark Surman and contains most of the same wording, including the opening sentence and the closing line. But it is not an exact verbatim match: the English source says, “Not because you going and build one Large Hadron Collider,” while the submitted quote says, “Not because you go and build one Large Hadron Collider.” The French Euronews version also renders that line differently (“Ce n'est pas parce que l'on va construire...”); this supports the gist, but not the exact English wording. So the quote is closely based on a real Surman statement, but the version provided is not fully verbatim. ([euronews.com](https://www.euronews.com/next/2025/02/21/how-europe-could-leap-ahead-in-the-global-ai-race-according-to-mozillas-president)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

AI Verified Verified via web search. The quote is directly confirmed: Mark Surman (Mozilla Foundation president) made these statements in a Euronews interview from February 2025 about Europe pooling resources for AI. Confirmed elements: Switzerland's 10,000 research GPUs, Canada's research computers, the "CERN for AI" idea created by pooling digital resources rather than building a Large Hadron Collider equivalent, and the contrast with venture-capital-funded big companies. The vote "for" the statement "The CERN for AI should be completely non-profit" perfectly aligns - Surman explicitly contrasts his model with "big companies with venture capital" and advocates pooling research/government resources for open-source infrastructure, which is fundamentally a non-profit approach. Could not fetch euronews.com directly (blocked) but attribution and quote content are confirmed by independent web search results. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-7 · 4mo ago

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Mark Surman votes Against

Open-source AI is more dangerous than closed-source AI

And that's where I think that that first debate around open-source AI being riskier than closed AI got it wrong and frankly was instrumentalized by a certain set of players.

AI Verified source (Apr 1, 2026)

added 28d ago

Mark Surman votes For

Create a global institute for AI, similar to CERN

incent researchers to work together and you get quite naturally this idea of the CERN for AI, [...] Not because you going and build one Large Hadron Collider, [...] but because you just pool digital resources that people are already spending money on...

more AI Verified source (Feb 21, 2025)

added 11mo ago