EU AI Innovation Package Explained

The European Commission has launched an “AI innovation package” to support European startups and SMEs developing trustworthy AI aligned with EU values and rules, building on the December 2023 political agreement on the EU AI Act. The package operationalises President von der Leyen’s commitment to provide innovative AI startups, alongside the broader innovation community, with privileged access to European supercomputers, following the November 2023 “Large AI Grand Challenge,” through a combination of infrastructure, policy, and funding measures.

Key elements include:

AI Factories (via an amendment to the EuroHPC Regulation): A new pillar under the EU’s supercomputing Joint Undertaking to acquire, upgrade, and operate AI-dedicated supercomputers for rapid machine learning and training of large general-purpose AI (GPAI) models. The initiative aims to broaden access to these resources for public and private users (including startups and SMEs) and to provide a “one-stop shop” offering support for the development, testing, evaluation, and validation of large-scale models, along with supercomputer-friendly programming and other enabling services. It is also intended to accelerate the development of applications based on GPAI models.

Creation of an AI Office within the Commission: Intended to coordinate EU-level AI policy and oversee implementation and enforcement of the forthcoming AI Act, including supervision of rules for general-purpose AI models and systems. The decision establishing the AI Office is set to enter into force on 21 February 2024 (with the date corrected on 26 January 2024).

EU AI Start-Up and Innovation Communication: A set of additional actions, including Commission funding for generative AI via Horizon Europe and the Digital Europe Programme, expected to mobilise around €4 billion in additional public and private investment until 2027. It also includes initiatives to strengthen Europe’s generative AI talent base through education, training, upskilling, and reskilling; measures to stimulate investment in AI startups and scale-ups (including venture capital and equity support via the EIC Accelerator and InvestEU); accelerated rollout of Common European Data Spaces (supported by a staff working document reporting the state of play); and the GenAI4EU initiative to promote new use cases across Europe’s 14 industrial ecosystems and the public sector, including areas such as robotics, health, biotech, manufacturing, mobility, climate, and virtual worlds.

Two European Digital Infrastructure Consortiums (EDICs), developed with Member States:

• ALT-EDIC (Alliance for Language Technologies): To build a shared European language-technology infrastructure and address shortages of European-language data for training AI, supporting linguistic diversity and enabling European large language models.
• CitiVERSE EDIC: To use advanced AI tools to develop and improve Local Digital Twins for Smart Communities, enabling cities to simulate and optimise processes such as traffic and waste management.
• AI@EC Communication: The Commission’s internal strategy for adopting AI and preparing for AI Act implementation, including steps to build institutional and operational capacity for trustworthy, safe, and ethical AI, and to support AI uptake in EU public administrations.

The European Parliament and the Council will consider the proposed amendments to the regulation establishing the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking, while Member States proceed with establishing ALT-EDIC and CitiVERSE EDIC with Commission support.

Source: Commission launches AI innovation package