The European Commission has announced its new Apply AI Strategyfocused on boosting the adoption of AI in various key industry sectors, with the aim of facilitating the maintenance of their competitiveness. It will have financing of around 1,000 million euros.
With this AI application strategy, the European Commission hopes to help the adoption of this technology grow in companies of all sizes, especially among SMEs. In addition, it wants to improve the efficiency and accessibility of public services through AI, as well as support the development of European AI frontier models, in addition to promoting the technological sovereignty of the European Union.
The strategy reinforces the EU’s “AI First” policy, which sees AI as a potential solution when companies have to make strategic or policy decisions, assessing the benefits and risks of the technology. Apple AI also promotes the “Buy European” approach, especially for the public sector, with a focus on open source AI solutions.
Apply AI also complements the AI Continent Action Plan through concrete actions focused on taking advantage of the transformative potential of this technology. It is divided into three areas, of which the first deals with sectoral initiatives. It includes specific measures to promote the adoption of AI in a dozen sectors of industry and the public sector.
These sectors are healthcare and pharmaceuticals, mobility, transportation and automotive, robotics, manufacturing, engineering and construction, climate and environment, energy, agriculture and foodb, defense (with security and space) and electronic communications. Also in the cultural and creative sectors, and in the media.
The second area comprises supporting measures and actions to increase the technological sovereignty of AI. To achieve this, the strategy contemplates addressing the transversal challenges of the adoption and development of AI.
In addition, it reinforces the role of the European Digital Innovation Hubs, which were transformed into Experience Centers for AI to become access points to the EU AI innovation ecosystem. It also includes AI Factories and Gigafactories, as well as AI experimentation and testing facilities and Artificial Intelligence regulatory sandboxes. On the other hand, this area also includes various measures to prepare workers to operate with said technology.
Finally, the strategy contemplates the creation of a new governance system, with the Apply AI Alliance as a coordination forum that brings together AI providers, sector leaders, academics and the public sector to ensure that the policies followed are based on real needs. The AI Observatory, closely connected to the Alliance, will be responsible for tracking AI trends, as well as assessing the impact of this technology in specific sectors.
The Apply AI Strategy is going to be launched almost at the same time as another strategy with which it is closely related, the AI in Science Strategy, which supports and encourages the development and use of AI among the European scientific community. To this end, the European Commission will launch a pilot program of the Resource for Science with AI in Europe (RAISE), which will be responsible for developing a pool of strategic resources for the advancement of AI, such as financing, computing, data and talent.
RISE will work on two fundamental pillars: Science for AI, which will support basic research to advance the main capabilities of AI, especially safe and reliable frontier AI; and AI in Science, which will promote the use of AI to facilitate advances in different scientific disciplines.
The Apply AI Strategy too will have a complement in the Strategy for Data Unionscheduled for approval at the end of October, will attempt to ensure the availability of high-quality, large-scale data sets for training AI models.
