Carney Compares Anthropic Ban to 2008 Crisis at G7, Warns of AI Over-Reliance

When a former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor tells you that AI model concentration looks like the systemic risk that caused 2008, you pay attention. Mark Carney, now Canada's prime minister, made that exact comparison ahead of the G7 summit — and he's uniquely positioned to make it stick.

Carney's warning, reported by The Next Web, came after the Trump administration ordered Anthropic to block all foreign nationals from accessing its most advanced models — Mythos 5 and Fable 5 — citing national security concerns. The directive forced Anthropic to take the models entirely offline, since the company couldn't distinguish users by nationality.

The chain of events was remarkably fast. According to France 24, an unnamed organization — identified by multiple media outlets as Amazon — reported to the Trump administration that it had found a way to bypass Fable 5's safety guardrails, specifically for cyberattacks. Anthropic described the jailbreak as "narrow" and said the software vulnerabilities exposed were "minor," but the White House moved anyway.

On Friday evening, the US Department of Commerce ordered the suspension. By Saturday, every user outside the United States lost access to Anthropic's most capable models. The order is without precedent — a government's outright ban on an advanced AI model developed by a domestic company, France 24 reported.

Carney was governor of the Bank of Canada during the 2008 financial crisis and later became the first non‑British governor of the Bank of England, where he spent six years strengthening financial system resilience. When he warns that concentrated AI dependence mirrors the systemic linkages that nearly destroyed the global banking system, the comparison draws on direct experience rather than rhetorical convenience, The Next Web noted.

"The Anthropic suspension has now given Carney a concrete, real‑time example to cite at the G7," the outlet reported. "A US government decision to invoke export controls against a single AI company cut off access to its most capable models for every user outside the United States, including allies."

The international response has been swift and structural. The EU published a tech sovereignty package earlier this month curbing US cloud dependence. India has proposed a $5 billion sovereign AI fund in the wake of the Anthropic suspension. Britain's Cosine is rallying BT, HSBC, and BAE to build a sovereign frontier model, according to The Next Web.

Carney's G7 visit to Ireland also produced a bilateral agreement between Canada and Ireland on AI cooperation, tech collaboration, and food security. Ireland currently holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union, making it a strategic partner for Canada as it seeks to deepen ties with Europe on AI.

The reaction from the AI industry has been sharp. Entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky said the implications of the order are "enormous," writing on X that any startup "making frontier models is at the mercy of the government. Therefore, the order doesn't just punish Anthropic. It changes the rules for the entire industry," France 24 reported.

Researcher Gary Marcus said he had viewed the US and China as battling to a "tie" in the AI race — until Friday's announcement. "It didn't occur to me the Trump administration could trip the US efforts from behind," Marcus said, per.² "But it just did."

The fragmentation of AI access is accelerating. If you're a builder outside the US, the Anthropic ban is a warning shot: the models you depend on can be switched off overnight by a government that doesn't answer to you. The sovereign AI investments now being proposed — $5 billion from India, the EU's tech sovereignty package, Britain's Cosine initiative — are all signals that nations are preparing for a world where AI model access is a geopolitical lever, not a commercial service.

For builders inside the US, the flip side is less obvious but equally real: export controls on AI models will trigger retaliatory restrictions, fragmenting the global market that Silicon Valley startups depend on for growth. The era of one AI model serving the entire world may be ending.