Europe’s biggest firms are trailing the US tech giants in market value—big time.
The combined market cap of Europe’s top seven companies—SAP, Novo Nordisk, Hermès, ASML, LVMH, Roche, and Nestlé—is stuck at $2.2 trillion (€1.73tr) mid-2024, barely moving this year.
Meanwhile, the US “Magnificent Seven” tech giants—Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Broadcom—have surged to $18.8 trillion (€16.12tr), up 10.2% since January. 
Nvidia alone is worth €3.59 trillion, bigger than all seven European firms combined. It powers AI worldwide, fueling everything from model training to real-time inference.
Natalie Hwang, founder of Apeira Capital, said:
> “While the others use AI to power their platforms and services, Nvidia supplies the very foundation on which those ambitions are built,”
>
> “It quietly enables the success of every other member of the Magnificent Seven, while remaining their most indispensable partner.”
Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft plan to spend over $320 billion (€294 billion) on AI infrastructure next year, primarily on inference and hyperscale data centers.
JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon dropped a blunt warning for Europe at a Dublin event:
> “Europe has gone from 90% of US GDP to 65% over 10 or 15 years. That’s not good,”
>
> “You’re losing.”
Dimon blamed Europe’s woes on overregulation, market fragmentation, and low productivity. He urged leaders to back former ECB President Mario Draghi’s 2024 report calling for €800 billion in annual investments to boost industrial competitiveness.
Dimon added:
> “We’ve got this huge, strong market and our companies are big and successful, have huge kinds of scale that are global. You have that, but less and less.”
Europe’s top companies remain global brands but lack the tech muscle to keep pace with America’s fastest-growing innovators. The AI race is shaping the future—and Europe is falling behind fast.
