You seriously think that university research in the US is largely funded or driven by companies? This is utterly wrong.
*Edit*. The question is why the united states has the "best research universities". That is a very general-level question and the Parent made a very general, and very wrong, claim in response. Regardless of whether some specific fields might have more industrial funding than others, it's easy to google the overall portion: and industry funding is quite minor.
> Unless you’re talking about AI/ML, then yes, university labs receive more from companies, than government funding agencies.
This is simply untrue. Companies comprise less than 10% of overall university research funding, and AI/ML is far from dominant. It's easy to verify this.
Companies tend to fund applied research.
Funding in Europe, whether academic or industry motivated, is simply lacking across all scientific, engineering, and social science disciplines.