Meredith Whittaker, President of the Signal Foundation, has joined PostScriptum on its mission to drive the European AI ecosystem and build competitive AI companies out of Europe. As a PS Fellow, Whittaker also takes on a board advisor role at Qutwo, PostScriptum’s AI lab for the quantum era. Alongside her appointment, PostScriptum will form a wider group of accomplished technology leaders as PS Fellows, to supercharge its pursuit of state-of-the-art AI and AI-native companies.
Peter Sarlin is building generational AI companies through PostScriptum, while Foundation PS drives long-term research excellence. Europe has real advantages in compute, data, and talent, but struggles to translate that into market-leading, scalable businesses that can leap-frog the current concentrated tech model. Closing that gap requires bolder, more ambitious technology platforms built at scale and sensitive to market opportunities that the incumbents can’t easily serve.
PostScriptum, the founder’s office behind NestAI, Qutwo, and Silo AI, takes a long-term perspective to ensure Europe succeeds in building and scaling innovative technology and AI that serve needs not currently addressed. The activities take three shapes:
- PostScriptum builds technology that pushes the boundaries of the state-of-the-art by being the cradle of NestAI, Qutwo, and Silo AI. While Silo AI was acquired by AMD in Europe’s largest AI acquisition in 2024, NestAI is a leading European AI lab for defence, and Qutwo is a next-gen AI lab for the quantum era. Through a recent €30M commitment, PostScriptum is also building quantum hardware to power quantum computers for the million-qubit era.
- To drive the ecosystem, PostScriptum invests in the most transformative European AI companies, with a portfolio that includes among others Lovable, Legora, Tandem Health, ICEYE, IQM, CuspAI, PhysicsX, Bottlecap AI, Recursive, AMI Labs and Prior Labs (acquired by SAP).
- With Foundation PS, PostScriptum aims to drive long-term research excellence by strengthening the AI research community. After donating 13 PS Fellow professorships to form the initial ELLIS Institute Finland, it has in 1 year grown to over 50 AI professors, each an internationally recognized scholar with funding to build a world-class research group.
Prior to joining PostScriptum, Whittaker has spent over two decades at the intersection of AI, privacy, and technology. She is a member of Nokia’s Board of Directors and the President of the Signal Foundation, the organization behind the secure messaging app Signal. She has been listed among the 100 most influential people in AI by TIME magazine in 2023 and 2024, and is a leading voice on AI and privacy, data protection, and the risks of centralized, surveillance-dependent AI.
She was formerly the Minderoo Research Professor at New York University, and a faculty director & co-founder of the AI Now Institute. Before that, she held various roles at Google for 13 years, where she founded Google’s Open Research group and co-founded the M-Lab. She has also served as senior advisor on AI to FTC Chair Lina Khan.
“AI is increasingly infrastructure, not just a product; compute, data, models, and the standards that govern them. Meredith has spent her career thinking hard about who controls that infrastructure and whom it serves. That perspective is directly relevant to what we’re building at Qutwo and across PostScriptum. We’re glad to have her with us to build PostScriptum companies.” said Peter Sarlin, Founder of PostScriptum.
Whittaker joins PostScriptum to ensure Europe succeeds in building and scaling AI, to address market opportunities that the incumbents can’t easily serve and to build technology that can leap-frog the current concentrated tech model:
“The model that established concentrated Big Tech in the US and China over the last decades will not work for other markets, in Europe or elsewhere. Or, imitating a monopoly once it’s established, without the economies of scale, market reach, or network effects is a recipe for a record of failure. A record that compounds, and lends itself to incorrect ‘common sense’ like the idea that Europe only regulates, it doesn’t innovate.
While it’s not possible to compete with Big Tech on Big Tech’s terms, the good news is that the Big Tech hyperscaler model is not the only one, nor are its many technical and social pathologies. Building technology that enables independence, democratic governance, auditability and accountability, human rights like privacy–while providing truly robust solutions that are fit for purpose–is where opportunities for leap-frog innovation actually live. And where Europe and other markets have an advantage.
PS is doing this, which is why I’m happy to be taking a formal role with PS and QuTwo. For a number of years already, Peter and I have been in conversation about opportunities for meaningful innovation beyond the templatized large-scale AI model.
What would it take to serve market needs that are not currently addressed, to take the social role of technology that claims to ‘change the world’ seriously? What questions and research need to be explored before building such tech is possible and how can we invest in it? And how can innovative tech products that put these needs and values at the center of their technical development grow and thrive, with resources and market access available to nurture their growth?
I am happy to see PS putting intelligence and resources behind this serious mission across all its axes, and I’m looking forward to being part of it”
About PostScriptum
PostScriptum, the founder’s office of AI entrepreneur and researcher Peter Sarlin, is on a mission to build generational AI companies out of Europe. It is the cradle of NestAI, Qutwo, and Silo AI, acquired by AMD in Europe’s largest AI acquisition in 2024. Its angel portfolio includes companies such as Lovable, Legora, Tandem Health, ICEYE, and Prior Labs, acquired by SAP. Through Foundation PS, PostScriptum also supports AI research excellence in Finland and Europe.