200 Billion Euros: EU plans Expensive AI Catch-up Race
With high investments and simplified legislation, the EU wants to promote the establishment of high-performance data centers for AI applications that are available to developers across Europe and are intended to narrow the gap with the USA.
European companies do not seem to play a major role in the development of artificial intelligence (AI). Companies from China and the USA dominate the headlines, particularly with their intelligent voice assistants. However, the sector is still in its infancy. According to one forecast, the turnover generated worldwide with AI applications is set to increase enormously in the coming years. Last year, 224.8 billion US dollars were generated; by 2028, this figure is expected to exceed 630 billion US dollars.
The European Union (EU) also wants to benefit from this growth. At the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, announced a comprehensive investment program.
EU focuses on its own strategy for AI
According to her vision, the EU should become one of the world's leading regions with regard to the use of AI. To this end, the existing infrastructure is to be expanded and so-called AI factories are to become AI gigafactories. These are high-performance data centers that should also offer the necessary performance reserves for training large language models.
Compared to the leading nations in this field to date–China and the USA–a different strategy is to be pursued. Access to the data centers funded by the EU should be available to all developers of applications in this area as far as possible. However, von der Leyen believes that these resources should primarily be used for AI applications in key areas of the European economy. For the European industry in particular, she hopes for applications that will help increase productivity.
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In order to accelerate developments, the European Commission is relying on huge investments–which, however, largely come from private sources. As part of the European AI Champions Initiative, 60 European companies–from start-ups to large corporations–are represented, and 150 billion euros are to be invested. In addition, the EU wants to provide its own funds of 50 billion euros as part of a program called InvestAI. Furthermore, the regulations within the framework of AI Acts are also intended to accommodate the software developers who are driving forward European AI fantasies. The Commission President promises uniform rules across the EU.
More independence from the USA
It remains to be seen what impact the EU Commission's initiative will have on AI development in Europe. The development lead of the US appears to be enormous. New record sums are also constantly being announced in terms of planned investments.
However, the tech companies on the other side of the Atlantic also show that money is only a limited guarantee of success. In the battle for the top spot, parallel developments are being fueled instead of seeking cooperation and working together to reach the goal faster and with less effort. This is an opportunity for Europe.
Do you use any AI applications in your day-to-day life? If so, where are they from? Do you think the EU is too late to catch up? Let us know in the comments!
