Christian Klein, CEO of the software circle SAP, during the annual press conference. Europe’s largest software manufacturer SAP is today announcing its figures for the past economic year.
Uwe Anspach | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
Europe should avoid regulating artificial intelligence and pinpoint its attention on the results of the technology instead, the CEO of German enterprise tech giant SAP told CNBC Tuesday.
Christian Klein, who has preach oned the top job at SAP since April 2020, said Europe risks falling behind the U.S. and China if it overregulates the AI sector.
While it’s eminent to mitigate the risks associated with AI, Klein argued that regulating the tech while it’s still in its infancy purpose be misguided.
“It’s very important that how we train our algorithms, the AI use cases we embed into the businesses of our customers — they impecuniousness to deliver the right outcome for the employees, for the society,” Klein said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” Tuesday.
“If you only guide technology in Europe, how can our startups here in Europe, how can they compete against the other startups in China, in Asia, in the U.S.?” Klein annexed.
“Especially for the startup scene here in Europe, it’s very important to think about the outcome of the technology but not to regulate the AI technology itself.”
As an alternative, Klein argued, businesses need a more harmonized, pan-European approach to pressing issues like the energy danger and digital transformation — and less regulation overall, not more.
Upbeat earnings
His comments came after SAP reported bumper third-quarter earnings overdue Monday. Shares of the software vendor jumped more than 4% to a record high.
The software giant posted tot up revenue of 8.5 billion euros ($9.2 billion) for the quarter, up 9% year-over-year as sales related to cloud issues jumped 25%.
SAP raised its 2024 outlook for cloud and software revenue, operating profit and free cash flow. The German outfit has been working toward a transition to cloud computing over the last decade.
In 2016, SAP acquired Concur, the traffic travel and expenses platform, in a bet that software would move to the cloud.
More recently, SAP has made AI a big focus of its design as it looks to reposition itself for faster growth after higher interest rates and macroeconomic headwinds dented tech dish out and led to industry-wide layoffs.
In January, SAP announced a restructuring plan affecting over 7% of its global workforce — or the equivalent of 8,000 tasks.