Council Regulation (EU) 2024/1732 of 17 June 2024

What it is

to amend Regulation (EU) 2021/1173 as regards a European High Performance Computing (EuroHPC) initiative for start-ups to boost European leadership in trustworthy Artificial Intelligence. ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the Council adopts the act after consulting the European Parliament but without being obliged to follow its opinion. BACKGROUND: a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (Artificial Intelligence Act) aims to improve the functioning of the internal market by laying down a uniform legal framework in particular for the development, marketing and use of artificial intelligence in conformity with Union values. Since 2021, when Council Regulation (EU) 2021/1173 was adopted, the field of artificial intelligence (AI) has seen enormous technical progress and become a highly strategic and contested domain globally. The Union is at the forefront of efforts to support responsible innovation in trustworthy AI, while setting guardrails and developing effective governance. The European Parliament adopted by 525 votes to 32, with 21 abstentions, a legislative resolution on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EU) 2021/1173 as regards an EuroHPC initiative for start-ups to boost European leadership in trustworthy Artificial Intelligence. The proposed amendment will enable the High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC) to make its HPC capacity available to innovative European start-ups, in order to foster the development, testing and validation of AI solutions and to enable the formation and large-scale development of general-purpose, reliable and ethical AI models and systems, thereby strengthening Europe's competitiveness and industrial base in the field of AI. Parliament approved the Commission proposal subject to the following amendments: Artificial Intelligence Factory pillar for trustworthy and ethical Artificial Intelligence This pillar covers activities for the provision of an Artificial Intelligence-oriented supercomputing service infrastructure that is aiming at further developing the innovation capabilities and skills of the Artificial Intelligence ecosystem; those activities should address, inter alia : - the acquisition and operation of Artificial Intelligence-dedicated supercomputers co-located with data centres or connected to data centres via very high speed networks; - the upgrade of existing EuroHPC supercomputers with Artificial Intelligence capabilities; - providing access to the Artificial Intelligence-dedicated supercomputers or EuroHPC supercomputers upgraded with Artificial Intelligence capabilities, including widening their use to a large number of public and private users, including start-ups, scale-ups, SMEs, higher education institutions and the wider scientific community; - broadly communicating the opportunities offered by the Artificial Intelligence Factories to start-ups, scale-ups and research and innovation communities; - through a transparent, equal opportunities and open process, attracting, pooling, training and retaining talent, including students, developers, researchers, scientists and…

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