On April 9, the European Commission is expected to make public the ambitious AI Continent action plan, marking the key event in Europe’s strategy to hasten the rollout of artificial intelligence in the industry.
The plan is built on five major areas, each of 1. infrastructure, 2. data access, 3. cloud computing, 4. talent development, and 5. regulatory simplification, which are its main directions to positioning Europe at the forefront of AI globally.
The European Commissioner for Technology, Henna Virkkunen, disclosed the whole program in her speech at the FT Enabling Europe’s AI Ambitions conference held in Brussels.
She indicated that the European Union was taking a comprehensive approach, including an emphasis on the role of AI deployment in enhancing society and avoiding overlapping regulations that hinder businesses, especially SMEs, too much.
The heart of the initiative is a €200 billion stimulus for AI prop, of which €20 billion is to go to AI gigafactories. These facilities will bring together AI experts from all across Europe to work on complicated AI models thus creating an infrastructure and research foundation for Europe’s AI field.
Moreover, the European Commission’s approval of the Digital Europe Programme for the period of 2025-2027 with a budget of €1.3 billion aims to push forward key digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and virtual environments.
Thus, the financial aid will contribute to establishing a digital Europe and strengthening its technological sovereignty in the areas mentioned above.
The call for proposals associated with the first tranches of the Digital Europe Funds will be announced on April 15, 2025, which is the start of the application period stretching through to September 2.
It is a significant enabling factor for research workers, firms, and establishments to participate in the digital transformation of Europe. A separate call targeting European Digital Innovation Hubs with increased AI abilities will take place earlier, on April 3.
Regarding AI adoption, European Digital Innovation Hubs are not only the places for testing, technology expertise, consulting, and training, but also the source of the best practices on how AI technologies reach all sizes of organizations across the continent.
The Enforcement of the AI Act, which was the first comprehensive AI law globally in 2024, will not be completed until 2027. But, still, the Commission is trying to move forward by providing clarity about the “digital fitness check” as a measure through which the laws can be made more easily understandable and do not avidly make administrative work burdensome.
The overseen way has been addressing from the new US administration under President Trump to Vice President JD Vance with warning words ‘excessive regulation’ of AI at the AI Action Summit in Paris at the beginning of this year. European officials argue that their way of doing things is a mix of invention and all necessary guarantees.
The focus on investment from the EU happens to coincide with the great rivalry of the worldwide AI stage. A total of €33 billion was invested in EU AI companies while their counterparts in the US managed to secure more than €120 billion only between 2018 and 2023. Also, the EU has four times less the number of dedicated data centers when one compares it to the United States.
In addition to the actions of the state, multiple private sector actors are organizing complementary initiatives, pushing the AI Champions Initiative in the EU to gather €150 billion into European AI startups in five years.
It was the cooperation that provided the capital investment, which was something more than the result of the sole actions of the companies that usually took part less than the others.
Major corporations like Deutsche Bank, Helsing, Mistral AI, and Spotify are actively supporting this coalition, which represents the European AI sector’s strong joint action.