(Reuters) - The chief executive of Deutsche Telekom on Wednesday called on Germany's incoming government and Europe to take on more leadership in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and data centres to compete with the U.S. and Asia.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

Chinese startup DeepSeek triggered a $1 trillion-plus sell-off in global equities markets last month when it unveiled a cut-price AI reasoning model that outperformed many Western competitors and is now rushing to launch a new AI model, according to three sources.

Telekom CEO Tim Hoettges said he expected demand for data centres to increase by at least 30% in Europe, despite the advancement of programmes such as DeepSeek that make do with less computing power.

Deutsche Telekom is investing into data centres and is in the process of building four of them in Europe, aiming to build up to one gigawatt of infrastructure, he said.

KEY QUOTES

"We need data centres in Europe and in Germany," Hoettges said at the German telecom giant's press call after publication of its annual results earlier on Wednesday.

"We simply have to realize that Europe is in competition with America and Asia and we can't rely on there being a rich uncle somewhere who will supply us accordingly," Hoettges said.

"More computing power is a must-have for the future growth of our economy and it is a must for Europe's sovereignty that it needs in the digital age. We will make our contribution," he added.

CONTEXT

Earlier in February, European politicians met with the technology sector in Paris to discuss the development of AI.

At the AI summit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced an aim of mobilising 200 billion euros ($210 billion) in private and public funding to expand Europe's AI infrastructure, committing 50 billion euros of funding from the European Union.

That goal compares to up to $500 billion of U.S. private sector investments in AI infrastructure announced by President Donald Trump last month.

($1 = 0.9535 euros)

(Reporting by Hakan Ersen in Frankfurt and Marleen Kaesebier in Gdansk; Editing by Milla Nissi)