So, from a regulatory perspective neither of these are in the EU either ;)

Only theoretically; the UK, as half the country said would happen, is currently deciding to use its post-Brexit sovereignty to repeatedly freely choose to (almost?) always do whatever the EU decides to do, only without any of the free trade advantages that come with guaranteeing they always will.

> but owned and funded by Google

I remember Demis Hassabis(Deepmind founder) said in some podcast that they had lot of troubles getting decent funding in Europe. In general it seems Europe has much less appetite for funding private research groups than US, which I think it boils down directly or indirectly to regulations.

This is true, it all comes down to money.

Europe is as capable if not more capable of being the center of engineering, tech and software. However there is no huge hotbed of VC money that allows huge risks.

Europe has much less appetite for funding anything.

Except particle physics - which I guess is why they are trying to sell it this way.