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What the Commission proposes

The European Commission proposes the Cloud and AI Development Act to establish a framework of measures aimed at strengthening Europe's cloud and artificial intelligence ecosystem. The initiative focuses on three pillars, which include research and innovation for greening infrastructure, industrial investments to triple EU data processing capacity, and actions to increase secure data processing capacities for cloud providers in the EU. Ultimately, the proposal seeks to address infrastructure gaps, reduce critical dependencies on non-European providers, and enhance the Union's digital sovereignty and competitiveness.

• Addresses the EU gap in cloud and AI infrastructure capacity through three distinct pillars.
• Promotes research and innovation to accelerate sustainable cloud and AI computing technologies.
• Aims to triple the EU data processing capacity over the next 5 to 7 years via industrial investments.
• Introduces measures to increase secure data processing capacities for high-critical use cases.
• Establishes common criteria for sovereign cloud computing services to reduce extraterritorial dependencies.
• Promotes open-source solutions and joint public procurement activities across the public sector.

Summary written by AI from the Commission's document.

Key passages on your topics

1. The current shortage of computing capacity in the EU constrains the ability of European industries to fully benefit from the use of cloud and AI technologies, especially those requiring low-latency and high-performance computing. By increasing the availability of energy-efficient compute capacity and the development and deployment of cutting-edge cloud and AI technologies, this initiative directly helps strengthen Europe’s industrial competitiveness and technological leadership, in line with the objectives of Article 173(3) TFEU. Given the proposal’s dual objective of remedying internal market distortions and bolstering the EU’s industrial competitiveness, it will be adopted as a single legislative instrument under the cumulative legal basis of Articles 114 and 173(3) TFEU.

   Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE..., page 8 (EN)

2. The Act also aims to promote autonomy, reduce dependencies on critical technologies and increase the adoption of cloud computing services across the public sector, enabling critical sectors to use sovereign cloud computing services. Additionally, the proposal will lead to the establishment of a European public sector cloud federation, common procurement activities and the promotion of open-source solutions. Overall, the proposal seeks to empower these beneficiairies, fostering a competitive, innovative and autonomous European cloud and AI ecosystem that drives economic prosperity, social wellbeing and strategic autonomy. The proposal is envisioned to have positive effects on the global competitivess of the European AI and cloud sector, and the attractiveness of the EU for third countries’ businesses and researchers. 1.3.4.

   Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE..., page 78 (EN)

3. The use, reuse and promotion of open source in public administrations, will accelerate innovation allowing EU companies to compete in terms of performance, energy efficiency, and novel offers (PM20). All measures under this initiative are conceived to be in line with the EU’s international trade obligations. The initiative looks to incentivise local investment and aggregate demand by anchor customers, ensuring that competitive advantage is grounded in trust and operational excellence rather than on market power. Finally, the initiative seeks to enable European providers to gain market share at EU and international level, by equipping them with the necessary mechanisms to enhance the scale and scope of their service offering. In the mid to long term, the levers proposed in this initiative (e.g.

   COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT IMPACT ASSESSMENT REPORT..., page 179 (EN)

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