The Apply Artificial Intelligence Strategy is the European Union’s overarching sectoral strategy for Artificial Intelligence and represents another step towards making Europe an Artificial Intelligence continent. It is designed to enhance the competitiveness of strategic sectors and to strengthen the European Union’s technological sovereignty. The strategy aims to boost Artificial Intelligence adoption and innovation across Europe, with a particular focus on Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and on supporting industries and the public sector to understand where Artificial Intelligence is effective and how it can deliver competitive advantage.
The Apply Artificial Intelligence Strategy promotes an Artificial Intelligence first policy in which Artificial Intelligence is systematically considered as a potential solution in strategic or policy decisions, while carefully weighing benefits and risks. It also encourages a buy European approach, especially in the public sector, with an emphasis on open source Artificial Intelligence solutions. The strategy is structured around 3 main components. The first consists of sectoral flagships with targeted measures to accelerate Artificial Intelligence uptake across 10 key industry sectors and the public sector, covering areas such as healthcare and pharmaceuticals, mobility, transport and automotive, robotics, manufacturing, engineering and construction, climate and environment, energy, agri-food, defence, security and space, electronic communications, and cultural, creative and media sectors, with Artificial Intelligence powered advanced screening centres highlighted as a healthcare example.
The second component sets out support measures and actions to increase the European Union’s technological sovereignty by addressing cross cutting challenges to Artificial Intelligence development and adoption. It reinforces the role of the European Digital Innovation Hubs, which have been transformed into Experience Centres for Artificial Intelligence to serve as access points to the European Union Artificial Intelligence innovation ecosystem, including Artificial Intelligence Factories and Artificial Intelligence Gigafactories, Artificial Intelligence Testing and Experimentation Facilities and Artificial Intelligence regulatory sandboxes, alongside several measures to build an Artificial Intelligence ready workforce. The third component establishes a new governance system through the Apply Artificial Intelligence Alliance, which brings together Artificial Intelligence providers, industry leaders, academia and the public sector as the main coordination forum, while the connected Artificial Intelligence Observatory tracks trends and assesses sector specific impacts.
The strategy is supported by 3 annexes detailing structured dialogues, the European Commission’s internal Artificial Intelligence related initiatives, and a summary of Artificial Intelligence related actions of the Commission. It is complemented by the Artificial Intelligence in Science strategy, which backs the European scientific community through the Resource for Artificial Intelligence Science in Europe pilot, pooling funding, compute, data and talent under two pillars: Science for Artificial Intelligence, focused on safe and secure frontier Artificial Intelligence research, and Artificial Intelligence in Science, promoting the use of Artificial Intelligence across disciplines. The Apply Artificial Intelligence Strategy is also complemented by the Data Union Strategy, foreseen for late October, which aims to secure high quality, large scale datasets essential for training Artificial Intelligence models, supporting the broader transformation of Europe into the Artificial Intelligence continent.
