After the adoption of the EU AI Act in December, the Commission unveiled another initiative to foster trustworthy AI development by European startups and SMEs in concordance with EU values and regulations.
In 2023, President of EC Ursula von der Leyen introduced an initiative to grant access to Europe’s supercomputers for pioneering AI startups, enabling them to train reliable AI models. This became a reality in November 2023 with the Large AI Grand Challenge, a prize giving AI startups, financial aid and supercomputing access. The current package materializes this commitment by implementing various measures to bolster AI startups and innovation. This includes a proposal for affording preferential access to supercomputers for both AI startups and the wider innovation community. In addition to the things already mentioned, this initiative brings the following measures:
- • An amendment of the EuroHPC Regulation to set up AI Factories (access to AI supercomputers for public and private users, a one-stop shop for startups and innovators for research, etc.);
- • Establishment of an Artificial Intelligence Office within EC to coordinate AI policy;
- • EU AI Start-Up and Innovation Communication also announced to boost public and private investment and cooperation in AI and strengthen the EU’s generative AI talent pool through education, training, skilling and reskilling activities;
- • There is also a new GenAI4EU initiative aimed at igniting innovation by actively supporting the development of new applications within Europe’s 14 industrial ecosystems and the public sector. Application areas include robotics, health, biotech, manufacturing, mobility, climate and virtual worlds;
- • One of the key activities is also to boost the development of Common European Data Spaces for the AI community so they can train and improve better models;
- • EC is also cooperating with member states on some key areas in AI with the establishment of two European Digital Infrastructure Consortiums (EDICs). One of the projects is the ‘Alliance for Language Technologies’ (ALT-EDIC) which tries to preserve linguistic diversity in digital space as there is a shortage of European language data for AI training. Another one is the ‘CitiVERSE’ EDIC where AI tools will provide help to cities in optimizing processes such as traffic and waste management;
- • Today the EC also adopted AI@EC Communication which outlines strategic vision and actions to build institutional and operational capacity to foster the benefits of AI safely and ethically.
The European Commission’s recent initiatives signify a robust commitment to fostering trustworthy AI, innovation, and addressing key challenges. These actions demonstrate a comprehensive strategy to enhance Europe’s position in the evolving competitive AI landscape.
