Last December the European Commission submitted a Coordinated Plan on Artificial Intelligence to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of Regions together with a Coordinated Plan on the Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence made in Europe – 2018 prepared by Member States, Norway, Switzerland and the Commission.
The Council welcomed the Plan and highlighted the importance of fully embracing the digital transformation, including Artificial Intelligence. In addition the Council’s conclusions on the coordinated plan on AI stressed that start-ups, scale-ups, SMEs and innovative companies have to contribute to and benefit from the development of Artificial Intelligence. There is a need to assist SMEs to innovate with Artificial Intelligence technologies by implementing supporting actions. The Council also declared its support to the diffusion and to a broader access to Artificial Intelligence capacity in Member States, for example through the AI-on-demand platform, the network of digital innovation hubs and clusters, or the network of centre of excellence through the programme proposed for the next Multiannual Financial Framework (i.e. Digital Europe, InvestEU, Horizon Europe).
Find out more by reading the Council conclusions at this page.
In case you are interested in learning more about how Artificial Intelligence is impacting on SMEs, the insights from the INSME webinar on “Artificial Intelligence, Robots and SMEs: Possibilities, Problems and Prospects” held last February are available here.
Source: Council of the European Union
