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During last decade, i.e. mainly from 2018, the EU institutions have been approaching the burning artificial intelligence (AI) issues. The “accommodation” process has been quite active: from the initial “declaration of cooperation” with the EU member states and serious funding to several AI Alliance assemblies to a Union-wide strategy on AI and European AI Act in 2024 (to be fully effective from August 2026).
Background
Artificial intelligence, AI has already entered almost all spheres of public and personal life, business and science: from using a virtual personal assistant to organising and planning. The so-called smart systems help governance solve national and global biggest challenges: treating chronic diseases, fighting climate change and anticipating cybersecurity threats. Being one of the most strategic technologies of the 21st century, the AI is at the forefront of numerous EU developments: many recent AIs have come from the so-called AI factories; around a quarter of all industrial and professional service robotics in the world are being produced by European companies. Already in 2018, the Commission proposed a triple approach: to increase public and private investment in AI, prepare for socio-economic changes, and ensure an appropriate ethical and legal framework. Following the Declaration of cooperation signed by the then 24 EU states and Norway on 10 April 2018, the Commission started a coordinated plan on AI with the aim of maximizing the impact of investment at the EU and national levels, exchange best practices and define the way forward to ensure the EU’s global competitiveness in this sector.
The Commission established the first investment program for AI, including the development of more efficient electronic components and systems (such as chips specifically built to run AI operations), world-class high-performance computers (HPCs), as well as flagship projects on quantum technologies and on the mapping of the human brain. Investments in AI research and innovation initially were expected to reach at least €20 billion just for the first two years; additionally, the Commission has increased investment to €1.5 billion during 2018-20 under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. These investments were expected “to trigger an additional €2.5 billion of funding from existing public-private partnerships, for example on big data and robotics”.
More in “Artificial intelligence: Commission outlines a European approach to boost investment and set ethical guidelines” (2018), in: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_18_3362
The first EU-wide strategy on AI was adopted in April 2018 in the form of communication from the Commission and providing for an open dialogue with citizens, civil society, business and consumer organisations, trade unions, academia, public authorities and experts on AI perspectives.
Source: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM%3A2018%3A237%3AFIN
Also in 2018, the AI Alliance has been created to engage around 6000 stakeholders through regular events, public consultations and online forum exchanges on various AI issues.
Presently, the 4th AI Alliance Assembly took place in mid-November 2023 in Spain focusing on policy aspects through “Leading Trustworthy AI Globally”.
European AI Alliance and legislation
= First European AI Alliance Assembly took place in June 2019, celebrating one year since the launch of the AI Alliance community to discuss the main directions of work for the high-level executive group, so-called AI HLEG.
The second EU AI Alliance Assembly occurred in October 2020 to assess the outcomes of the public consultation on the European AI White Paper.
The third European AI Alliance Assembly took place in September 2021 under the working title “High-Level Conference on AI: From Ambition to Action” to discuss AI excellence and trust in AI at the global level.
More in “The European AI Alliance” in: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/european-ai-alliance
The EU-wide coordinated plan on AI, adopted the end of 2018, was aimed at making Europe “as the world leader in developing and deploying cutting-edge, ethical and secure AI, as well as promoting a human-centric approach in the global context”. The main goals of the coordinated plan was “maximizing the impact of investments at EU and national levels, encouraging synergies and cooperation across the EU, including on ethics, fostering the exchange of best practices and collectively define the way forward” It was underlined that “by working together the Union can maximize its impact to compete globally”.
Source: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2018/06/29/20180628-euco-conclusions-final/. Other details on AI history in Europe can be seen at: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/european-approach-artificial-intelligence
= European AI Act. The AI Act is the first-ever legal framework on AI, which addresses the risks of AI and positions Europe to play a leading role globally. The AI Act (Regulation 2024/1689) laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence)is the first-ever comprehensive legal framework on AI worldwide. The aim of the rules is to foster trustworthy AI in Europe; it shall apply from 2 August 2026.
On Regulation in: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32024R1689
The AI Act sets out a clear set of risk-based rules for AI developers and deployers regarding specific uses of AI. The AI Act is part of a wider package of policy measures to support the development of trustworthy AI, which also includes the AI Innovation Package, the launch of AI Factories and the Coordinated Plan on AI: together, these measures guarantee safety, fundamental rights and human-centric AI, the strengthen uptake, investment and innovation in AI across the EU. The AI Act ensures that Europeans can trust what AI has to offer: while most AI systems pose some although limited risk, the can contribute to solving many societal challenges; certain AI systems create risks that shall be addressed to avoid undesirable outcomes. For example, it is often not possible to find out why an AI system has made a decision or prediction and taken a particular action.
So, it may become difficult to assess whether someone has been unfairly disadvantaged, such as in a hiring decision or in an application for a public benefit scheme. Although existing legislation provides some protection, it is insufficient to address the specific challenges that AI systems may bring.
More on risks in AI in: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/regulatory-framework-ai
AI Factories
In 2025, the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) has selected six additional Artificial Intelligence Factories in the EU.
At the end of 2024, the EuroHPC JU selected the sites that hosted the first European AI Factories, set to be deployed during 2025 across European member states in Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain and Sweden.
On first Factories in: https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/selection-first-seven-ai-factories-drive-europes-leadership-ai-2024-12-10_en
Thus, Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Poland, and Slovenia will join the newly selected AI Factories, supported by a combined national and EU investment of around €485 million. The factories will offer privileged access to AI startups and SMEs, fostering growth and more effective scaling up.
AI Factories are a core pillar of the Commission’s strategy for Europe to become a leader in AI, bringing together 17 EU states and two associated EuroHPC participating states. The infrastructure and services provided by AI Factories are essential for unlocking the full potential of the sector in Europe. Backed by the EU’s world-class network of supercomputers, these factories will bring together the key ingredients for AI innovation: computing power, data and talent. This will enable AI companies, particularly SMEs and startups, as well as researchers, to enhance the training and development of large-scale, trustworthy and ethical AI models.
As announced by the Commission President at the AI Action Summit in February 2025, the Invest AI initiative (an initiative to mobilise €200 billion for investment in AI, including a new European fund of €20 billion for AI giga-factories) was aimed to increase European investments in AI, “which would include the deployment of several AI giga-factories for massive high-performance computing facilities designed to develop and train next-generation AI models and applications”.
Citation from: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_467. More on new AI factories in: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/second-wave-ai-factories-set-drive-eu-wide-innovation?pk_source=ec_newsroom&pk_medium=email&pk_campaign=Shaping%20Europe%E2%80%99s%20Digital%20Future/en
Our opinion
During last decade, the EU has been falling behind some leaders like the US and China in technological innovation and economic growth: the growing gap is evident in several indicators, e.g. GDP per capita, market capitalization of new companies and in advanced technologies. For example, in 2010, the US GDP per capita was 47% higher than in Europe; by 2021, this gap had widened to 82%. More alarming is the gap in innovation, entrepreneurship and creation of high-value companies: during last 50 years, the US produced 68 companies worth over $10 billion, with a combined market capitalization of nearly $30 trillion; whereas in Europe there were far fewer large-cap companies and 70 times (!?) smaller in a combined value. In AI, the gap in investment is particularly striking: in 2024 the US expected to invest about $100 billion in AI, which is 50 times more than the expected €2 billion in Europe.
Digitalization in SMEs, which forms the backbone of European economy, shows grim outcomes: the EU aims for 90% of SMEs to reach a basic level of digital intensity by 2030; however, in 2023 the progress lagged by more than 30 percentage points. Projections show that by 2030, only 66% of European companies will use cloud services, 34% will use big data, and just 20% will adopt artificial intelligence, which is far below the target of 75%.
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/economy-2025-why-europe-falling-behind-ivan-ostojic-znr0e
Below are some our examples of AI’s progress in the world:
= Leading the pack, Perplexity is attracting a lot of attention due to its high-quality answers, great quoting of sources, and staying on topic even as you ask follow-up questions. Perplexity is a factual language model that allows users to ask open-ended, challenging and other questions in an informative and comprehensive way. Among other are: Writesonic, GitHub Copilot, Claude, YouChat, Character.ai, Jasper AI and OpenAI Playground, just to name a few…
More in: https://www.simplilearn.com/tutorials/chatgpt-tutorial/chatgpt-alternatives
= Largest AI companies by market capitalization in the world are from the US: e.g. Apple and Microsoft, Nvidia-3NVDA and Alphabet (Google)-4Goog (as well smaller companies like Tesla, Oracle and IBM.
Source: https://companiesmarketcap.com/inr/artificial-intelligence/largest-ai-companies-by-marketcap/
= According to a report by Statista, the global AI software market is expected to grow by 54% year on year, reaching a forecast size of $22.6 billion by 2025. And since people use smartphones every day, there are many AI-powered apps reach Apple’s App Store and Google Play store. AI applications are platforms that use AI technology, machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) to perform tasks that usually require human involvement. Besides, developed by Hanson Robotics, Sophia is a humanoid robot equipped with the most advanced artificial intelligence and designed to mimic human behavior and interaction.
More in: https://www.getguru.com/reference/best-ai-apps
= Among some best AI apps in the world (2024) are: TikTok-773 million subscribers, Instagram with 759 million, Facebook with 571 million and WhatsApp with 527 million.