How the European Commission is competing in the Global AI Race to help Europe stay behind China, USA and Russia, or why the EU is failing to become "a leader in the AI revolution, in its own way and based on its values"



Europe accounts for the largest share of top 100 AI research institutions worldwide. 32 research institutions in the global top 100 for AI-related research paper citations vs 30 from the USA and 15 from China.

 

Europe is home to a world-leading AI research community, as well as innovative entrepreneurs and deep-tech startups (founded on scientific discovery or engineering). It has a strong industry, producing more than a quarter of the world's industrial and professional service robots (e.g. for precision farming, security, health, logistics), and is leading in manufacturing, healthcare, transport and space technologies – all of which increasingly rely on AI.

 

Europe also plays an important role in the development and exploitation of platforms providing services to companies and organisations (business-to-business), applications to progress towards the "intelligent enterprise" and e-government.

 

But, as to "Artificial Intelligence for Europe", the EU risks losing out on the opportunities offered by AI, facing a brain-drain and being a consumer of solutions developed elsewhere. COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE EUROPEAN COUNCIL, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE

REGIONS.

 

The EC has already wasted-invested significant amounts in AI, cognitive systems, robotics, big data and future and emerging technologies:

AI-RELATED AREAS

Around €2.6 billion

over the duration of Horizon 2020 on AI-related areas

(robotics, big data, health, transport, future and emerging technologies).

 

ROBOTICS



€700 million under Horizon 2020 + €2.1 billion from private investment

in one of the biggest civilian research programmes in smart robots in the world.

 

SKILLS



€27 billion through EuropeanStructural and Investment Funds,

on Skills development out of whichEuropean Social Fund invests,

€2.3 billion specifically in digitalskills.



PROJECT EXAMPLES, or where money wasting

 

SATISFACTORY

Collaborative and augmented-reality system to increase worksatisfaction in smart factories.

Contribution: €4 million

 

SERENA



AI techniques to predict maintenance of industrial equipment.

Contribution: €5.5 million

Trimbot2020

The project develops anintelligent gardening robotwhich can trim hedges, rosesand bushes.

Contribution: €5.4 million

 

SIMPATICO



Personalise and simplify publice-services so citizens can easilyunderstand and interact withtheir public administration.

Contribution: €3.6 million

 

MARS



Mobile robot that plants seedswhile workers monitor theprocess from anywhere.

Contribution to all ECHORD++experiments: €19.7 million

SmokeBot

Civil robots support firebrigades in search and rescuemissions to perform in harshconditions.

Contribution: €3.8 million

 

BETTER



Earth observation through bigdata and machine learning toforecast risk scenarios.

Contribution: €1.9 million

 

VI-DAS



Automated sensors detectpossible dangerous situationsand accidents. The driver is

alerted and road safety isimproved.

Contribution: €6.2 million

 

KConnect



Multi-lingual text and searchservices that help people findthe most relevant medicalinformation available.

Contribution: €3 million

Transforming Transport

Data-driven transformationwhich will solve urbanmobility issues, develop smartmotorways, proactive rails andmuch more.

Contribution: €14.6 million

Data & eHealth

AI can recognise a cardiac arrest during emergencycalls faster and more frequently than the medicaldispatcher.

 

Transport



AI can minimise wheel friction of a suspended trainagainst the track while maximising the speed andimpact and enables autonomous driving.



Beyond 2020 no radical solutions, but "upgrade, enhance and support".

Commission proposals under the next EU multiannual financial framework (2021-2027):

 

 upgrading the pan-European network of AI excellence centres;

 

 research and innovation in fields such as explainable AI, unsupervised machine learning, energy and data efficiency;

 

 additional Digital Innovation Hubs, world-leading testing and experimentation facilities in areas such as transport, healthcare, agrifood and manufacturing, supported by regulatory sandboxes;

 

 supporting the adoption of AI by organisations across all sectors, including public interest applications, through co-investment with Member States;

 

 exploring joint innovation procurement for the use and development of AI;

 

 a support centre for data sharing, which will be closely linked with the AI-on-demand platform to facilitate development of business and public sector applications.

 

Support for technologies and infrastructure that underpin and enable AI such as high-performance computing, microelectronics, photonics, quantum technologies, the Internet of Things and cloud.

Support more energy-efficient technologies and infrastructure, making the AI value chain greener.

 

The Commission will therefore facilitate the creation and operation of a broad multi-stakeholder platform, the European AI Alliance, to work on all aspects of AI. The Commission will also facilitate interactions of the Alliance with the European Parliament, Member States, the European Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions as well as international organisations. The Alliance will be a space for sharing best practices, encourage private investments and activities related to the development of AI.

 

The European AI Alliance is aimed at AI ethics guidelines instead of AI itself, narrowly understood as "software or hardware systems that display intelligent behaviour by analysing their environment and taking actions – with some degree of autonomy – to achieve specific goals".

 

With its 'Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan', China is targeting global leadership by 2030 and is making massive investments. Other countries, such as USA, Japan and Canada, have also adopted AI strategies.

In the United States and in China, large companies are significantly investing in AI and are exploiting large amounts of data.

 

Overall, Europe is behind in private investments in AI which totalled around EUR 2.4-3.2 billion in 2016, compared with EUR 6.5-9.7 billion in Asia and EUR 12.1-18.6 billion in North America

 

By 2025 the economic impact of the automation of knowledge work, robots and autonomous vehicles will reach between €6.5 and €12 trillion annually.

https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/factsheet-artificial-intelligence-europe

Artificial Global Intelligence

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/artificial-global-intelligence-converging-general-big-abdoullaev/?published=t

 

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