Shaping Europe’s digital future: Commission presents strategies for data and Artificial Intelligence

Today the European Commission presented a Strategy to make Europe “fit for the digital age” of which two cornerstones are the data strategy and the EU approach to Artificial Intelligence.

CECIMO welcomes these important initiatives and wishes to highlight that data sharing and pooling, as well as improved data quality, usability and security, are essential not only for the growth and competitiveness of European business, but for the development of Artificial Intelligence technologies and applications as well. The need for trustworthy, ethically responsible and technically robust AI should not lead to a race to AI regulations.

It is important to consider thoroughly what are the cases where a legislation should be proposed and for which well-defined risks. The EU needs to ensure that legislation does not hamper the development of EU capabilities in AI, the future investments in AI and the potential competitiveness of EU companies, especially SMEs, on a global level.

Filip Geerts, CECIMO Director General, stated “we ask the European Commission to make the “ecosystem of excellence” a reality and to ensure that the entire value chain and the SMEs are active players in the EU data economy”.