EU Unveils Ambitious 'AI Continent Action Plan' to Compete with US and China

Europe unveils plan to become 'AI continent' with simpler rules, more infrastructure

The European Union is so far the only jurisdiction globally to drive forward comprehensive rules for artificial intelligence with its AI Act. The European Union on Wednesday presented a plan to boost its artificial intelligence industry and help it compete more aggressively with the U.S. and China, following criticisms from technology firms that its regulations are too cumbersome. In a press release, the European Commission, the executive body of the EU, outlined its so-called "AI Continent Action Plan," which aims to "transform Europe's strong traditional industries and its exceptional talent pool into powerful engines of AI innovation and acceleration." Among the ways Europe plans to bolster regional AI developments are a commitment to build a network of AI factories and "gigafactories" and create specialized labs designed to improve the access of startups to high-quality training data. The EU defines these "factories" as large facilities that house state-of-the-art chips needed to train and develop the most advanced AI models. The bloc will also create a new AI Act Service Desk to help regional firms comply with its landmark AI law. "The AI Act raises citizens' trust in technology and provides investors and entrepreneurs with the legal certainty they need to scale up and deploy AI throughout Europe," the Commission said, adding the AI Act Service Desk will "serve as the central point of contact and hub for information and guidance" on the rules. The plan bears similarities to the U.K.'s AI Action Plan announced earlier this year. Like the EU, Britain committed to expand domestic AI infrastructure to aid developers.

EU to build AI gigafactories in €20bn push to catch up with US and China

Up to five sites with power-hungry supercomputers and datacentres planned to drive AI 'moonshots' The EU has revealed details of a €20bn (£17bn) plan to create new sites equipped with vast supercomputers in Europe to develop the next generation of artificial intelligence models, while opening the door to amending its landmark law that regulates the technology. Publishing a strategy to turn Europe into an "AI continent", the European Commission vice-president Henna Virkkunen said the technology was at the heart of making Europe more competitive, secure and technologically sovereign, adding: "the global race for AI is far from over". The EU is bidding to catch up with the US and China, which have taken a global lead in pioneering the technology that increasingly powers shopping websites, self-driving cars, generates text, and is predicted to play a transformative role in future healthcare, security and defence, and advanced manufacturing, among other sectors. The US has a commanding lead in AI, far ahead of China. A report from Stanford University earlier this week said that in 2024, 40 "notable AI models" - meaning influential - were produced by institutions in the US, compared with 15 in China and three in Europe (all French). In a separate 2024 report, Stanford found that no EU country made the top five for "vibrancy" in AI, a metric that considers private investment, patents and research. It ranked the UK in third place, behind the US and China, with France in 6th place and Germany 8th. The EU has already embarked on a plan to build 13 AI factories - sites with supercomputers and datacentres, where researchers develop and test AI models. The new AI "gigafactories" would be much larger, targeting what the commission called "moonshots": significant innovations in healthcare, biotech, industry, robotics and scientific discovery. While the best-performing AI factories have supercomputers equipped with up to 25,000 advanced AI processors, a gigafactory would exceed 100,000 AI processors, the strategy document said. These power-hungry facilities, which can require huge amounts of water for cooling, should run "as much as possible" on a green energy supply, an EU official said, with plans for "recycling" water, if it was used. EU officials envisage three to five AI gigafactories in the EU at a cost of around €3-5bn each, compared with €600m for the biggest AI factory. The commission is seeking to raise €20bn, using public money to incentivise private investors, via a facility provided by the European Investment Bank. The bloc is also seeking to develop European-made AI semiconductors, advanced chips that are vital for AI factories. But the commission faced criticism for indicating an openness to rethink its AI Act. The regulation, which aims to control the risks posed by AI, was approved by the European parliament only last year and will not be fully applicable until August 2027. On Wednesday, the commission said it was launching a consultation on "possible simplification" of the AI Act, as part of a wider drive to cut redtape amid concerns about Europe's lagging economic growth. The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) said the commission needed to focus on the implementation and enforcement of the AI Act. "Much of the AI Act does not even apply yet but the commission is already signalling that it is open to cutting some of its requirements. When we know that consumers worry about how AI could be used to harm them, the commission should instead be trying to reassure consumers," said Frederico Oliveira da Silva at BEUC. Virkkunen said the commission was "very committed" to the risk-based approach and the main principles of the AI Act, but was looking at whether there were some administrative burdens or reporting obligations that could be cut to make life easier for businesses.

EU Commission presents plans to boost AI, protect critical sectors

AI has been identified as one of the critical sectors in which the EU should become less dependent on other regions, the Commission said. The European Commission on Wednesday presented a plan to help boost the uptake of artificial intelligence by companies. The so-called AI Continent Action Plan covers infrastructure, data access, cloud, skills and simplification, and aims to transform Europe's traditional industries into "powerful engines of AI innovation and acceleration", as Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced in February in Paris. It's important "to build capacities in critical sectors" to ensure that the bloc is not dependent on other regions, EU Technology Commissioner Henna Virkkunen told reporters during the launch. "We have identified AI as one of the sectors where we need to build our own capacity, like quantum and chips. They are key technologies for the future," Virkkunen said. When it comes to chips used for the development of AI tools, Virkkunen said that the EU has a "good partnership" with the US. "We are willing to buy, but we need our own capacities. That is also why we are working on a Chips Act 2.0.," she added. She declined to comment when asked whether the tech sector will be affected by tariffs in the ongoing trade spat between the EU and the US. Companies are invited to share feedback until June on several of these strategies via a public consultation on the Cloud and AI Development Act, and the Apply AI strategy, aiming to identify challenges to the uptake of AI. Last year the EU adopted an AI Act setting out rules for AI tools depending on the risk they pose to society. It is being phased in gradually and will be fully in force in 2027. The EU has set a target for three-quarters of firms in the bloc to be using AI by 2030. The Commission previously announced plans for a public-private partnership to set up gigafactories which will have around 100,000 last-generation AI chips, around four times more than the AI factories currently being set up. The aim is that even smaller companies should be able to access large-scale computing power for future development. Euronews understands that a first gigafactory could be set up in 2026. Some €20bn will be earmarked for AI gigafactories, the Commission said in January. Data published by the Commission last January suggests that the bloc is behind when it comes to AI innovation and investment compared to other regions, including the US. Due to "excessive regulation and administrative barriers" technology companies decide to move elsewhere. Between 2008 and 2021 some 147 unicorns were founded in Europe - companies whose valuation exceeds a billion dollars - but 40 of these moved their headquarters abroad, the bulk went to the US, according to the data.

EU vies for AI dominance with AI Continent Action Plan

The EU's ambitious AI Continent Action Plan aims to make Europe a global leader in artificial intelligence (AI). We take a look at the details. As signposted in February by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, at the AI Action Summit in February in Paris, the wide ranging initiative aims to transform Europe's strong traditional industries and its talent pool into "powerful engines of AI innovation and acceleration". Speaking at the launch yesterday (April 9), Henna Virkkunen, executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy said she firmly believed that the EU was uniquely positioned to become an AI Continent. "First and foremost, we have an unparalleled pool of top talent - our universities and research institutions are among the best in the world," she said. "It is not said enough, but we have today 30pc more AI researchers than in the US." She also pointed to a vibrant ecosystem of dynamic startups "that are driving key innovations in the development of AI frontier models and in applications across various sectors, from healthcare to robotics to manufacturing". She did concede that more needed to be done to support this sector to ensure Europe did not fall behind in a fast-changing sector. To this end Virkkunen laid out five key areas where policy action needed to be improved. AI data and computing infrastructure The EU will concentrate on enhancing AI infrastructure in the EU, building on the thirteen AI Factories it is are establishing throughout Europe and setting up AI Gigafactories. These AI Gigafactories will be implemented through public-private partnerships and other funding mechanisms, she said, flagging the InvestAI Facility announced in January, which aims to mobilise €20bn investment in AI infrastructure, to create five AI Gigafactories across the EU. The Commission will also propose a Cloud and AI Development Act, with a goal to at least triple the EU's data centre capacity in the next five to seven years, prioritising highly sustainable data centres. Access to large, high-quality data The Commission recognises that AI innovation will require access to large volumes of high-quality data. To this end the Action Plan aims to create Data Labs that bring together and curate large, high-quality data volumes from different sources in the AI Factories. A comprehensive Data Union Strategy will be launched in 2025 to create a true internal market for data that can scale up AI solutions, it announced. Fostering AI adoption in strategic sectors "Today only 13pc of EU companies use AI, said V. "We need to accelerate its adoption to increase productivity and create new products and services. We will also address the public sector, where in area like healthcare, AI can bring transformative benefits." The Commission will launch the Apply AI Strategy in the coming months. European AI innovation infrastructure, including the AI Factories and the European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs), will play an important role in this Strategy, it said. Boosting AI skills and talents To meet rising demand for AI talent, the Commission will facilitate international recruitment of highly skilled AI experts and researchers through initiatives such as the Talent Pool, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action 'MSCA Choose Europe' and AI fellowships schemes offered by the upcoming AI Skills Academy. Legal migration pathways will be set up for highly skilled non-EU workers in the AI sector, and the best European AI researchers and experts will be encouraged to return to Europe. Educational and training programmes on AI and Generative AI will be developed in key sectors, supporting the upskilling and reskilling of workers. Regulatory simplification The Commission will launch the AI Act Service Desk, to help businesses comply with the AI Act, serving as the central point of contact and hub for information and guidance on the Act. "We should never forget that under the risk-based AI Act around 85pc of all AI systems remain unregulated," said V, "We want these companies to know that they are not subject to any rules under the AI Act, and for the remaining 15pc we want to achieve a maximum of simplicity." The Commission will be in ongoing dialogue with public sector and industry representatives. In addition yesterday it launched two public consultations, running until June 4 2025, to further shape the Action Plan initiatives, a public consultation inviting all interested parties to share their views on the Cloud and AI Development Act and a public consultation on Apply AI to identify stakeholder priorities. A third public consultation on Data Union Strategy will be launched in May. Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Something for the weekend - welcome to the AI Continent of Europe. US and Chinese travellers, please have your documentation ready for inspection...

A bold declaration from EU Technology Commissioner Henna Virkkunen this week as she formally launched the birth of the AI Continent Action Plan, the European Union's broad AI strategy to take on the US and China for parity, if not dominance, of the sector. So, is this just bravado and rhetoric, or is Europe finally going to get its act together to create a techno power bloc that can play catch-up with the two superpowers and genuinely be see as a contender on a level playing field? There are some harsh realities that need to be acknowledged. The EU currently only invests around four percent of what the US does in AI. The European Innovation Council worked with a budget of €256 million euros in 2024; the US allocated more than $6 billion dollars to the same ends, including $4.1 billion from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the so-called 'agency that shaped the modern world' post-Sputnik. In other words, the US outspends the EU with total ease. Back in January, former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi produced a report into the competitiveness of the EU as a bloc in which he called for a shift in R&D focus onto AI and semi-conductors to reduce dependency on foreign sources in both fields. He also demanded that member states back this up with hard cash, to the tune of doubling the Horizon Europe research program's annual budget to €200 billion. But alongside money there needs to be organizational and attitudinal reform in the EU, particularly around the regulatory burdens companies face. 'If it moves, regulate it', may an exaggerated interpretation by Euro-sceptics of the status quo, but the painful truth is that of the near 150 'unicorn' start-ups set up in the EU between 2008 and 2021, basically a third of them have bailed on Europe and set up HQs in the US where additional funding and support are perceived as easier to source. Regulatory issues also come into play when it comes to foundational infrastructure. The EU has three times fewer data centers than the US. Expansion of the number of these is a non-negotiable requirement for the growth of the EU AI sector overall, but local legislation, often around sustainability requirements, can seem designed to inhibit the addition of new infrastructure, not facilitate it. And finally, only 13.5% of companies in the EU have adopted AI. Ouch! Virkkunen does acknowledge these issues: When we want to boost investments in AI, we have to make sure that we have an environment that is faster and simpler than the European Union is right now. To that end, the AI Continent Action Plan has specific proposals to cover infrastructure, data access, cloud, skills and simplification. It's also big on breaking the dependencies on the likes of the US and China. Virkkunen says: We have identified AI as one of the sectors where we need to build our own capacity, like quantum and chips...We are willing to buy, but we need our own capacities. OK, so that's the theory - what's the skinny in terms of practical action? Some of what is contained in the plan is a mopping up of existing initiatives and rehousing them under the broader strategy, which itself has five main pillars. (1) Building a large-scale AI data and computing infrastructure The intention here is to at least triple EU data center capacity within a time period of five-to-seven years. There will be a network of so-called AI Factories, 13 of which are already being deployed around supercomputer development, to support EU AI start-ups, industry and researchers in developing home-grown AI models and applications. Five of these new factories will be AI Gigafactories, pitched as "large-scale facilities with massive computing power and data centres. They will enable the training of complex AI models at an unprecedented scale". That last group will cost €20 billion in their own right, out of a wider budget of an estimated €200 billion. Who pays for all this? The EU taxpayer? Well, up to a point. The issue becomes expediently blurred here, with lots of high-minded wording around public/private partnerships to provide the necessary funding. Or as the more cynical might put it, 'Here's what we want to do; now let's work out who we can get to cough up the cash!'. Certainly there is an explicit goal to boost private investment via a proposed Cloud and AI Development Act. This does rather raise the question of where this investment might come from? What if, as a for instance, it were to be on offer from NVIDIA or Amazon, would that be money that the EU AI purists would be ready to take? (Spoiler - of course they would!) (2) Increasing access to large and high-quality data If we've all learned one thing about AI adoption during the post-ChatGPT hype hysteria it's surely that an essential requirement for success is a rock-solid data foundation. To that end the EU Action Plan proposes that creation of a Data Labs, to bring together and curate large, high-quality data volumes from different sources within the planned AI Factories. Later this year, a "comprehensive Data Union Strategy" will be launched with the goal of creating "a true internal market for data that can scale up AI solutions". (3) Developing algorithms and fostering AI adoption in strategic EU sectors To boost adoption of AI among EU users, the solution will be the Apply AI strategy which will aim to integrate AI into strategic sectors, such as the public sector and healthcare, across the bloc, using the AI Factories and European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs) to drive this forward. (4) Strengthening AI skills and talents Commissioner Virkkunen argued this week that the EU already has "an unparalleled pool of top talents" and boasted: It is not said enough, but we have today 30% more AI researchers than in the US! Nonetheless, there is an acknowledged demand for AI skills that currently can't be met across the bloc and this will only get worse if the Action Plan is effective in its other goals. The Plan proposes making international recruitment of skilled non-EU resident AI experts easier through legal routes and bodies, such as the Talent Pool, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action 'MSCA Choose Europe' and AI fellowships schemes offered by the upcoming AI Skills Academy. It will also develop educational and training programs on AI and Generative AI in key sectors, in order to breed "the next generation of AI specialists". (5) Regulatory simplification The EU is very proud of its AI Act; AI companies are perhaps less enamoured of some of the requirements it brings with it. In fact, the Act is often cited as a textbook example of the kind of European regulatory regime that throttles innovation in the process. For her part, Virkkunen is quick to counter that the EU view is that the Act provides investors and entrepreneurs with the legal certainty they need to scale up and deploy AI throughout Europe, adding: We should never forget that under the risk-based AI Act around 85% of all AI systems remain unregulated. We want these companies to know that they are not subject to any rules under the AI Act. And for the remaining 15% we want to achieve a maximum of simplicity. But that said, there is a recognition that some changes are needed. To that end, an AI Act Service Desk will be created to help businesses comply with the legislation, acting as the central point of contact and hub for information and guidance and thus saving companies from having to pay for legal advice on the subject. The next steps are two public consultations, running until 4 June 2025, one on the Cloud and AI Development Act and one on Apply AI, the latter intended to identify "stakeholder priorities", challenges to the uptake of AI, and the relevance of proposed solutions and policy approaches. Interestingly this includes the possibility of further modifications to the AI Act, which no longer seems to be the 'holy writ' it might have been perceived to be a few months ago. A third public consultation on Data Union Strategy will be launched next month. As we say, underlined in the document, the time for action is now! Back to the big question - will it work? For something that pivots on tackling a 'now or never' moment, there needs to be a recognition that this is a work-in-progress and is going to take time to assume its final shape. Giorgos Verdi, Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, offers an interesting critique when he says: While the plan is a welcome step for the EU to promote its AI expertise at a global level, it does not effectively address Europe's bottlenecks in AI resources, compute and energy. To match its aspirations for AI leadership, the EU will need to develop an approach that feeds into its existing strengths -- and breaks down artificial silos. Verdi proposes three main actions: It's interesting perhaps to compare the ambitions of the EU plan with its Brexit Britain counterpart, the AI Opportunities Action Plan, launched back in January with ambitions ranging from reforming the public sector through to making it easier to report potholes in the road, and with a lot of 'ifs, buts and maybes' in its wake. It does cover a number of the same areas as its EU counterpart and perhaps runs into a number of the same potential issues. The independent Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) thinktank has just published a timely analysis of the UK plan which would make for useful reading in both London and Brussels. Based on the thoughts of a database of 3,256 AI firms operating in the UK, The Direction of AI Innovation in the UK report warns of an industry lack of purpose and calls on government to take a more activist role to provide a sense of direction. To that end, it recommends: All eyes are now on what happens next at a time when relations between the US and China and the US and the rest of the world are in turmoil, with the tech sector caught in the crossfire. This one will inevitably run and run. But the game's afoot, one way or another.

This is the EU's plan to create AI hubs: Is it too late? - Softonic

As artificial intelligence reshapes the global tech landscape, the European Union is scrambling to catch up. While the US and China continue to lead the charge, Europe has long been criticized for prioritizing regulation over innovation. But now, the EU is unveiling a bold plan to reposition itself in the AI race. The European Commission has announced a €30 billion plan to develop AI infrastructure, including five massive "AI gigafactories." Each of these facilities will host 100,000 AI accelerators, dramatically increasing Europe's current computing capacity. The goal is to build a unified European market for data and AI services, accessible to all member states. Funding will come from the InvestAI fund (€20 billion), aimed at data centers and semiconductor acquisition, and an additional €10 billion will support 13 smaller facilities, expected to be operational by 2026. However, the location of these centers remains undecided, and any delay in the selection process could push back their launch by years. At present, only 13.5% of European companies use AI in production, a figure the Commission wants to improve. Through an initiative called Apply IA, the plan is to help local businesses adopt AI tools more easily. The lack of infrastructure -- not a lack of willingness -- has been the main barrier. Additionally, the EU plans to introduce visa and scholarship schemes to attract global talent, instead of focusing on bringing back European AI experts from abroad. While this move might raise questions, it highlights Europe's urgency in securing its position in the global AI ecosystem. Whether this ambitious roadmap is too little, too late remains to be seen.