Considerations on COM(2024)29 - Amendment of Regulation (EU) 2021/1173 as regards an EuroHPC initiative for start-ups to boost European leadership in trustworthy Artificial Intelligence - Main contents
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| dossier | COM(2024)29 - Amendment of Regulation (EU) 2021/1173 as regards an EuroHPC initiative for start-ups to boost European leadership in ... |
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| document | COM(2024)29 |
| date | January 24, 2024 |
(2) Since 2021, when Council Regulation (EU) 2021/11737 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.
(3) On 13 September 2023, as part of a comprehensive approach to support responsible innovation in AI, the Commission announced a new strategic initiative to make the Union’s high-performance computing capacity available to innovative European startups in trustworthy AI to train their models. That complements work on setting guardrails for AI through Regulation (EU) 2024/… , establishing governance structures, and supporting innovation through the Coordinated Plan on Artificial Intelligence.
(4) Given that the Union’s most powerful world-class supercomputing capacity is found in the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking’s (the “Joint Undertaking”) facilities, it is those facilities that should be made available in order for the Commission’s initiative to become a reality. It is accordingly necessary to introduce a further objective to the existing six objectives of the Joint Undertaking that would cover the contribution made by its supercomputers to the new AI initiative of the Union.
(5) The new objective would allow the Joint Undertaking to perform activities in the domains of acquiring and operating AI-dedicated supercomputers or partitions of supercomputers to enable fast machine learning and training of large AI foundation models. The Joint Undertaking should also be allowed to create a new access mode to its computing resources for AI startups and the wider scientific community active in AI and to develop dedicated AI applications optimized to run on its supercomputers. Those changes would enable the Joint Undertaking to offer tailored computing power and services to nurture large-scale AI training and development and uptake in the Union, which is not feasible under the current Regulation.
(6) In order to align the application date of this Regulation with the application date of the provisions of Regulation (EU) 2024/… of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence, it should apply without undue delay.
(7) Regulation (EU) 2021/1173 should therefore be amended accordingly.