Incoming tech Commissioner wants EU to become 'AI continent'

Europe should become the 'AI continent', Henna Virkkunen, European Commissioner-designate for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, said in written answers to questions from lawmakers ahead of her confirmation hearing next month.

Finland’s Virkkunen, herself a former EU lawmaker, promised to propose an AI Factories Initiative to the Parliament, aimed at giving start-ups access to high performance computers, within 100 days of taking office.

In addition, a Cloud and AI Development Act should help EU companies develop and deploy AI easier through more investment and energy efficiency targets.

She added that she will work on security, the cloud and data storage, without excluding non-EU providers.

“It is important to remain open to third-country providers, ensuring our supply chain security, while also accounting for the legitimate interest for 'sovereign cloud' solutions in particularly sensitive applications. Thanks to the Data Act’s shielding provisions, we have ensured that the data stored in Europe by cloud service providers remain safe from illegitimate access or transfers by non-EU governments, but we must do more for more sensitive applications,” Virkkunen wrote.

In addition, an Apply AI Strategy should help deploy new machine learning tools across industries and the public sector, according to the commissioner-designate's pledges.

The plans come on the heels of the previous European Commission proposing the world’s first regulation on AI, according to a risk-based and human-centric approach.  Virkkunen’s mission letter sent by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen already hinted at the EU executive’s plans for future work on AI. So far the EU has been falling behind on development and deployment of the