EU launches AI strategies to boost competitiveness and science

The European Commission has launched two strategies it hopes will speed up the adoption of artificial intelligence and strengthen Europe’s competitiveness and innovation capabilities. The Apply AI strategy focuses on integrating AI across key sectors of the EU economy, while the AI in Science strategy promotes its development in science.

“For companies, AI means huge jumps in productivity, better operations, lower costs and major innovation,” Henna Virkkunen, the commissioner responsible for technological sovereignty, told reporters in a press conference on October 8. “For the public sector, AI helps to offer new and better services to citizens, and it supports evidence-based policymaking.” 

The main objective of the Apply AI strategy is to introduce an “AI first” policy so that more companies think of AI when they need to tackle complex issues. 

In the healthcare sector, for example, the EU will create a network for AI-powered advanced screening to speed up diagnoses in hospitals and extend the reach of professionals to remote areas, Virkkunen said. AI is also expected to support the robotics industry in tailoring production to user needs. When it comes to mobility, the Commission hopes to establish a coalition of cities willing to create testing environments to bring self-driving cars to European roads. 

“For the public sector, we are developing an AI toolbox, a collection of practical, open-source, reusable tools to help public administrations take up AI solutions,” Virkkunen added.

Overall, around €1 billion in EU funding will go to the Apply AI strategy, with governments and the private sector expected to contribute on top to advance its goals. 

Small and medium enterprises will get special attention, with the Digital Innovation Hubs only recently set up under the Digital Europe programme due to be transformed into Experiences Centres for AI. The aim is to help SMEs with limited resources access the EU’s innovation ecosystem, from AI factories to the testing facilities.

Just 13.5% of European businesses are currently using AI, according to Virkkunen, against a 75% target for 2030. “The businesses that are using AI are mainly using it in the office work,” she said. “What we are now targeting in this strategy is to [combine] our AI developers together with our traditional industry.”

With trust in AI a key driver for investments, a service desk will be set up to provide companies with guidance to navigate the upcoming AI Act, with a compliance checker to help them understand their legal duties.

Meanwhile, a new Frontier AI initiative will reinforce European capabilities in developing frontier models and applications, starting with a call for leading industrial actors and academics to determine its structure. Meanwhile, the Joint Research Centre’s AI Observatory will develop new indicators to monitor AI trends and their sectoral impacts. 

The Commission will also look into how AI is reshaping the labour market.

Artificial intelligence for and in science

As already announced, the AI in Science strategy will pave the way for the creation of the Resource for AI Science in Europe (Raise), which is intended to fulfil the Commission’s commitment to create a “CERN for AI.”

“Through the strategy and Raise, we are occupying a space which is empty at the international level, because our main competitors, not to name the US and China, do not have a strategy,” said a Commission official during a press briefing in advance of the strategy launch. “They do have a lot of money that they put on AI in science, but not in a way that is structured and reasoned.”

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Raise will offer scientists and innovators access to strategic resources, data, tools, computing power and increased funding for research in and for AI, and is also set to boost the participation of the private sector. The groundwork for Raise will be laid by pilot projects to be funded through Horizon Europe calls in 2026-27.

The strategy also includes plans to reinforce Europe’s computer capabilities for AI. The Commission’s proposal to earmark €600 million from Horizon Europe to secure access for EU researchers and start-ups to AI gigafactories is being discussed. 

The Commission aims to double Horizon Europe’s annual investments in AI to more than €3 billion, and maintain a similar level of spending in the next Framework Programme. It is also assumed that Raise will receive support from other EU programmes, as well as EU governments and private players.

The pilot of Raise will be launched at the first AI in Science summit in early November in Copenhagen, Denmark.