On the flip side, with the US cutting funding for scientific research, and increasing persecution of minorities within the US, I know a whole bunch of qualified scientists/researchers who are either moving to or actively hunting for a position in the EU

Really not many people outside far right proponents of hate speech (and more recently MAGA shills) have been complaining about free speech in Europe. Yes, there are laws against holocaust denial for specific historical reasons. The UK also had regulations on some Irish republican organisations access to TV, but not other forms of expression. And yes most European jurisdictions accept that speech can cause harm and try to balance this against free speech. But there is really no case that nonviolent political speech is -- in practice -- discriminated against in EU and UK.

On the IT and AI services: Europe hasn't really failed to compete in innovation, as much as scale of operation. That might change if we have a security imperative to protect our own markets for these things against an increasingly hostile US.