24 Jan 2024
Commission launches AI innovation package
On 24 January 2024, the European Commission launched a package of measures to support European startups and SMEs in the development of trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (AI) that respects EU values and rules. This follows the political agreement reached in December 2023 on the EU AI Act – the world's first comprehensive law on Artificial Intelligence – which will support the development, deployment and take-up of trustworthy AI in the EU.
In her 2023 State of the Union address, Commission President von der Leyen had announced a new initiative to make Europe's supercomputers available to innovative European AI startups to train their trustworthy AI models. The AI package puts this commitment into practice through a broad range of measures to support AI startups and innovation:
- An amendment of the EuroHPC Regulation to set up AI Factories, a new pillar for the EU's supercomputers Joint Undertaking activities;
- A decision to establish an AI Office within the Commission, which will ensure the development and coordination of AI policy at European level, as well as supervise the implementation and enforcement of the forthcoming AI Act.
- An EU AI Start-Up and Innovation Communication outlining additional key activities:
- Financial support from the Commission through Horizon Europe and Digital Europe dedicated to generative AI. This package will generate an additional overall public and private investment of around €4 billion until 2027;
- Accompanying initiatives to strengthen EU's generative AI talent pool through education, training, skilling and reskilling activities;
- Further encourage public and private investments in AI start-ups and scale-ups, including through venture capital or equity support (including via new initiatives of the EIC Accelerator and InvestEU);
- The acceleration of the development and deployment of Common European Data Spaces, made available to the AI community, for whom data is a key resource to train and improve their models. A new Staff Working Document on common European data spaces has also been published today, providing the latest state of play;
- The ‘GenAI4EU' initiative, which aims to support the development of novel use cases and emerging applications in Europe's 14 industrial ecosystems, as well as the public sector. Application areas include robotics, health, biotech, manufacturing, mobility, climate and virtual worlds.
The Commission is also establishing, with a number of Member States, two European Digital Infrastructure Consortiums (EDICs): the ‘Alliance for Language Technologies' (ALT-EDIC), which aims to develop a common European infrastructure in language technologies, and ‘CitiVERSE' EDIC, which will apply state-of-the-art AI-tools to develop and enhance Local Digital Twins for Smart Communities.
The Commission also adopted a Communication outlining the Commission's own strategic approach to the use of Artificial Intelligence, preparing the Commission for the implementation of the EU AI Act.
The European Parliament and the Council will now consider the Commission's proposed amendments on the Regulation establishing the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking.
For more information:
EU AI Start-Up and Innovation Communication
Amendment to Regulation establishing the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking