The EU will support its companies developing reliable artificial intelligence

14.02.2024

THE EU WILL SUPPORT ITS COMPANIES DEVELOPING RELIABLE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

The European Commission has announced a package of measures to support European start-ups and SMEs in developing reliable artificial intelligence that respects EU values and rules. In her 2023 State of the Union speech, EC President Ursula von der Leyen announced a new initiative to make Europe's supercomputers available to innovative European AI start-ups. Today's package puts that commitment into practice, including through a proposal to grant privileged access to supercomputers to start-ups working in this area.

The proposed measures include: amending the Regulation establishing the European High Performance Computing (EuroHPC) Joint Undertaking in the field of supercomputing; a decision to create an Artificial Intelligence Service within the Commission, which will ensure the development and coordination of AI policy at European level and supervise the implementation of the Artificial Intelligence Act; EU Communication on AI start-ups and innovation outlining further key activities:

  • Financial support from the Commission through the "Horizon Europe" and "Digital Europe" programs for generative artificial intelligence in the amount of about 4 billion euros until 2027;
  • Accompanying initiatives in the field of education, training, qualification and retraining;
  • Additional promotion of investments in startups and growing enterprises in the field of artificial intelligence through the "EIC Accelerator" and "InvestEU" programs;
  • Accelerating the development and implementation of common European data spaces;
  • The "GenAI4EU" initiative with application areas such as robotics, healthcare, biotechnology, manufacturing, mobility, climate and virtual worlds.

In addition, two European Digital Infrastructure Consortiums (EDICs) are being created: the "Alliance for Language Technologies" (ALT-EDIC) for the development of large-scale language models in Europe and the EDIC CitiVERSE for artificial intelligence technologies in urban environments in areas such as the management of waste or traffic.