Present at the closing ceremony of the Artificial Intelligence Summit in Paris on Tuesday 11 February (see other news item), the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, took the opportunity presented by this gathering of heads of State and industry to announce the European ‘InvestAI’ initiative, designed to mobilise €200 billion of investment in the artificial intelligence sector.
“We want Europe to be one of the leading AI continents”, she said in her speech, stressing that the EU27 intended to focus on “AI gigafactories” (see EUROPE 13542/13), with an investment of €20 billion.
“Too often, I hear that Europe is late to the race, while the United States and China have already gotten ahead. I disagree. Because the AI race is far from over”, added the President of the European Commission.
“The truth is, we are only at the beginning. The frontier is constantly moving. And global leadership is still up for grabs”. In the face of the American and Chinese giants, who are currently in the lead, the EU needs to find its “third way”.
“We need to adopt our own approach to AI. Too often, I have heard that we should replicate what others are doing and run after their strengths. I think that instead, we should invest in what we can do best and build on our strengths here in Europe, which are our science and technology mastery that we have given to the world”, she said.
A few minutes before his visit, the American Vice-President, J.D. Vance had boasted of his country’s superiority in the field of AI and reiterated the new Trump administration’s desire to maintain this dominant position at all costs (see other news). He also warned the EU against regulating American industries in a way that might be deemed “excessive”.
The “gigafactories” financed by ‘InvestAI’ will constitute “the largest public-private partnership in the world” for the development of “trustworthy” AI, according to the Commission. Setting up these factories was one of the objectives of Ursula von der Leyen’s first 100 days in office. (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)