The decision, which big tech thinks may create hurdles for artificial intelligence (AI) was passed unanimously after two years of negotiations
EU Member States have finally approved new laws governing the safety and use of AI, after EU countries endorsed the draft legislation in December. While the final approval was essentially a rubber stamp after December’s move, both Germany and France — which were lobbied hard by tech companies — voiced opposition to the December agreement, suggesting the rules may stymie “EU AI champions” developing. Both countries dropped their opposition this week.
The EU’s new rules are said to be the most comprehensive on governing the use and safety of AI and will shape global industries in several vertical industry sector including some aspects of military use.
The European Commission proposed the rules in 2021 and throughout the process, tech association Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) – with members like Google, Meta and Amazon, has been warning of roadblocks with Reuters reporting that French AI start-up Mistral, founded by former Meta and Google researchers, and Germany’s Aleph Alpha have been lobbying their respective governments on the issue.
The next step for the AI Act to become legislation is a vote by a key committee of EU lawmakers on 13 Feb and the European Parliament vote either in March or April. It will likely enter into force before the European summer and should apply in 2026 although parts of the legislation will reportedly kick in earlier.
Startups not forgotten
In a LinkedIn post, EU Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton said the EU had largely addressed tech concerns by adopting a wide range of measures to support Europe’s AI startups, complementing the regulatory framework. He said last week’s agreement now resulted in a “balanced and futureproof text, promoting trust and innovation in trustworthy AI.”
He added that last week’s package of AI innovation measures supports European AI startups by: giving them access to the key “raw materials” of AI (data, computing power, algorithms and talent); links them with industry; and provide a clear, stable and predictable regulatory environment with harmonised rules in all 27 Member States.
“Our vision: a thriving European ecosystem of AI start-ups with talented researchers and engineers, developing large language models in all European languages, based on large amounts of easily accessible high-quality data, training them on the world’s fastest supercomputers, and working with industrial partners to turn them into innovative applications, with access to a large Single Market of 450 million people,” he said.
“And this vision is already becoming reality,” he said. “For example, in Italy, we see an AI startup training its large language model in Italian language on the Leonardo supercomputer (part of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking). In Finland, another start-up works with leading academics on open and trustworthy large language models, training them on another EuroHPC supercomputer -Lumi- with data in all European languages.”
He added: “We are giving start-ups (developing trustworthy AI) access to Europe’s high-performance computing infrastructure (EuroHPC). We already have some of the world’s fastest supercomputers (so-called pre-exascale and exascale), but on top of this, together with Member States, we will fund the acquisition and upgrade of AI-dedicated supercomputers.”
Investment in AI
Overall, the Commission and Member States will invest an estimated €2.1bn in the AI Factories – a one-stop shop for startup – and AI-dedicated supercomputers until 2027.
“In addition, thanks to our common European data spaces and our new data legislation (Data Governance Act and Data Act, which entered into force earlier this month), data will be interoperable and easily available to start-ups to develop new AI models,” said Breton.
Secondly, Europe’s industrial ecosystems, from manufacturing to automotive, will be key drivers of innovation in generative AI, he said. “With the new GenAI4EU initiative (with an estimated 500 million euros of additional funding until 2027), we help European start-ups partner with industrial users to transform their AI models into ground-breaking applications.”
“In several promising application areas, such as healthcare and smart cities, we recently launched AI Testing and Experimentation Facilities, helping start-ups validate their applications in real-world conditions,” he added.