EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton told the Financial Times on Wednesday (15 January) that he would present his proposals to create a European data area "in early March".
These proposals should help companies get more out of the data they generate. According to the figures put forward by the Commission, companies around the world today generate a volume of data of 35 zetabytes, i.e. 35 trillion bytes of data. This volume doubles every 18 months and will reach 175 zetabytes in five years. “My goal is to prepare ourselves so that the data will be used for Europeans, by Europeans and with our values”, Thierry Breton told the FT, suggesting that innovation will be increased if data can be transferred more freely and if it is re-used. The article does not, however, specify how the Frenchman and his team intend to do this.
At the Telecommunications EU Council of 3 December, the European Commissioner had nevertheless hinted that he would address this issue from two angles: interoperability within and between sectors and the re-use of data (see EUROPE 12382/5). “Data must be identified and there must be technical infrastructures where it can be generated, stored, processed and transformed. We need interoperable 'clouds', more computing power, because without data, there is no artificial intelligence with a European mastery. The public sector is one of the major data generators and providers and must make its contribution based on the Open Data Directive”, he had argued. On data identification, he had suggested that his project was to identify a set of high quality data to be made available free of charge via "API" programming interfaces and in machine-readable formats.
As for the rest of the timetable, it should be recalled that the Commission intends to present a Communication on 5G on 29 January and its proposals for the “European approach to artificial intelligence” on 19 February (see EUROPE 12403/29). (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)