TLDR: The European Union is poised to launch its ‘Apply AI’ strategy on October 7th, a key component of its broader ‘AI Continent Action Plan.’ This initiative aims to establish the EU as a global leader in artificial intelligence by fostering a secure, competitive, and sustainable AI ecosystem. The strategy focuses on accelerating AI adoption across industries, enhancing computing infrastructure through ‘AI Factories’ and ‘Gigafactories,’ and developing a skilled AI workforce.
The European Union is scheduled to unveil its ‘Apply AI’ strategy on October 7th, marking a significant step in its ambitious plan to bolster European artificial intelligence capabilities and ensure widespread adoption across the continent. This strategy is a crucial element of the EU’s ‘AI Continent Action Plan,’ which seeks to position Europe as a world-class hub for AI, emphasizing human-centric and trustworthy AI development.
The overarching goal of the ‘Apply AI’ strategy is to transition artificial intelligence from conceptual stages into broad application within both business and the public sector. It aims to build a secure, competitive, and sustainable European AI ecosystem that delivers tangible benefits to industry, public services, and society.
Key components of this comprehensive strategy include the establishment of ‘AI Factories’ and ‘Gigafactories,’ which are large-scale facilities equipped with state-of-the-art chips essential for training advanced AI models. These initiatives are designed to improve access to high-quality training data and computing capacity, crucial for AI startups and developers. The EU plans to launch an official call for the establishment of AI gigafactories towards the end of the year.
Furthermore, the strategy incorporates the concept of a ‘CERN for AI,’ officially known as the Resource for AI Science in Europe (Raise). Unlike a centralized institution, Raise will be distributed throughout Europe, linking existing infrastructures, including the EU’s AI factories. This distributed model, backed by the Commission’s independent scientific advisors, aims to ensure transparent and easy access for all parts of Europe.
To foster AI adoption, the Commission will also develop AI fellowship schemes to attract top talent and provide training programs for key industrial sectors, thereby creating a skilled workforce. The ‘InvestAI Facility’ is expected to stimulate private investment, with an estimated €20 billion in investments to support up to five gigafactories across the EU.
The ‘Apply AI’ strategy will advance dissemination by supporting concrete use cases in key industries, fostering cooperation between research, business, and policy, and ensuring that new infrastructures and policy measures deliver measurable impact. This includes a focus on innovation-friendly regulation and EU-wide regulatory sandboxes to reduce complexity and enable scalability.
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This strategic push comes amidst growing concerns from tech industry leaders regarding the complexity of the EU’s regulatory framework, with the ‘AI Continent Action Plan’ aiming to transform Europe’s traditional industries and talent pool into powerful drivers of AI innovation, competing with global leaders like the US and China. As Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, stated, “Artificial intelligence is at the heart of making Europe more competitive, secure and technologically sovereign. The global race for AI is far from over. Time to act is now.”
