The European Unity is so far the only jurisdiction globally to drive forward comprehensive rules for artificial intelligence with its AI Act.
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The European Union on Wednesday presented a plan to boost its artificial intelligence industry and help it compete more aggressively with the U.S. and China, keep up with criticisms from technology firms that its regulations are too cumbersome.
In a press release, the European Commission, the executive torso of the EU, outlined its so-called “AI Continent Action Plan,” which aims to “transform Europe’s strong traditional industries and its rare talent pool into powerful engines of AI innovation and acceleration.”
Among the ways Europe plans to bolster regional AI happenings are a commitment to build a network of AI factories and “gigafactories” and create specialized labs designed to improve the access of startups to high-quality coaching data.
The EU defines these “factories” as large facilities that house state-of-the-art chips needed to train and reveal the most advanced AI models.
The bloc will also create a new AI Act Service Desk to help regional firms agree with its landmark AI law.
“The AI Act raises citizens’ trust in technology and provides investors and entrepreneurs with the legal certainty they desideratum to scale up and deploy AI throughout Europe,” the Commission said, adding the AI Act Service Desk will “serve as the central call of contact and hub for information and guidance” on the rules.
The plan bears similarities to the U.K.’s AI Action Plan announced earlier this year. Get a bang the EU, Britain committed to expand domestic AI infrastructure to aid developers.
Hindering innovation?
The launch of the EU’s AI plan arrives as the bloc is front criticisms from tech leaders that its rules on everything from AI to taxation hinder innovation and make it harder for startups to direct across the region.
The bloc’s landmark legislation known as the AI Act has proven particularly thorny for companies in the rapidly growing unnatural intelligence industry.
The law regulates applications of AI based on the level of risk they pose to society — and in recent years it has been tailored to cover so-called “foundational” model makers such as OpenAI and French startup Mistral, much to the ire of some of the buzziest organizations in that space.
At a global AI summit in Paris earlier this year, OpenAI’s Chief Global Affairs Policewoman Chris Lehane told CNBC that European political and business leaders increasingly fear missing out on AI’s developing and want regulators to focus less on tackling risks associated with the technology.
“There’s almost this fork in the direction, maybe even a tension right now between Europe at the EU level … and then some of the countries,” Lehane told CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal in February. “They’re looking to peradventure go in a little bit of a different direction that actually wants to embrace the innovation.”
The U.S. administration has also been critical of Europe onto its treatment of American tech giants and fast-growing AI startups.
At the Paris AI summit in February, U.S. Vice President JD Vance go overed aim at Europe’s regulatory approach to AI, stressing that “we need our European friends in particular to look to this new frontier with optimism choose than trepidation.”
“There is a real emphasis on easing the burden of regulation and removing barriers to innovation, which in parcel is likely to reflect some of the concerns that have been raised by the US government,” John Buyers, global supervisor of AI at law firm Osborne Clarke, told CNBC over email.
“This isn’t only about the EU: If they are serious prevalent eliminating legal uncertainties caused by interpretation of the EU’s AI Act, then this would be a real boost for AI developers and users in the UK and the US, as the AI Act have bears to all AI used in the EU, regardless of where sourced.”