Buy European: EU Commissions New Apply AI Strategy Launched

Summary

Tech Commissioner Henna Virkkunen presented the Commission’s Apply AI strategy on Wednesday, outlining a support plan aimed at helping industries across Europe adopt artificial intelligence at scale. The wide-ranging document outlines a series of lists of measures which it hopes will accelerate take-up of AI. Top of mind is AI development itself: a “Frontier AI Initiative” is set to bring together companies and researchers to unlock “advanced capabilities”. This will include competitions to develop new open AI models, which the strategy says will get free access to EU-run supercomputers. “The strategy also encourages a Buy European AI approach, especially for the public sector,” Virkkunen said today. But while she mentioned favouring European innovation through public procurement, the strategy doesn’t outline specific steps in this direction. A Commission spokesperson could not immediately tell Euractiv which actions Virkkunen was referring to. The Commission will also open up European compute capabilities to train AI models for defence, and fund “AI for business” masters’ programmes to ensure companies have the skilled workers to tap into the tech. The strategy outlines support for developing AI models and agents tailored to the manufacturing sector, as well as funding for “acceleration pipelines” – meant to funnel AI from research labs into factories. In the health sector, AI is envisaged powering advanced screening centres. On climate, an open-source AI model is set to make for better weather forecasts, while – eyeing AI-driven mobility – a group of cities will be asked to volunteer as testbeds for autonomous cars. Just another strategy? All of this AI acceleration will be monitored by an “AI Observatory” and discussed in an “Apply AI Alliance” – a refashioning of the existing AI Alliance, a stakeholder talking shop. But while the strategy is big on announcing broad-brush measures, the finer details – how to actually implement this stuff – are harder to find. The...