Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us today.

Today the College has approved 2 important new plans: the Apply AI Strategy and the AI in Science Strategy.

These strategies are another clear step toward our vision: making the EU a true AI Continent.

The Apply AI Strategy is our plan to integrate Artificial Intelligence into our key industries.

Our goal is simple: to spark innovation and make our businesses more competitive around the world.

For companies, AI means huge jumps in productivity, better operations, lower costs, and major innovation.    
For the public sector, AI helps to offer new and better services to citizens, and it supports evidence-based policymaking.

However, only 13,5% of European companies currently use AI.  
The good news is that in Europe we have strong advantages in AI adoption:

Firstly, our companies lead the global market in industrial automation — a critical foundation for industrial AI.          

Secondly, We have a vibrant ecosystem of startups driving innovations, both in the development of frontier AI models and in their applications across sectors, from healthcare and energy to robotics and defence.

Thirdly, our computing infrastructure is growing fast: We are building 13 AI Factories and we recently launched a call for interest for new AI Gigafactories. The call received investment interest of over 230 billion euros.     
This clearly shows a strong commitment to investing in AI across Europe.

The Strategy takes a sector-by-sector approach. It focuses on the specific needs of industries and the public sector, making sure our policies are targeted and effective.

We are setting an AI-first policy.              
We encourage companies and public sector to always first consider AI solutions when making strategic decisions. Naturally, this requires careful consideration of opportunities and risks.    

We are also setting up flagship actions to show AIs powerful potential.
Let me share some examples.

In healthcare, we will create a network of AI powered advanced screening centres, to speed up AI powered diagnosis making in hospitals and bring services to remote areas.

In mobility, AI helps to scale up fully autonomous driving cars.

In robotics, we will connect developers with user industries, to speed up the creation of European solutions that meet market needs.

For the public sector, we are developing an AI toolbox — a collection of practical, open-source, reusable tools to help public administrations to take up AI solutions.

The Strategy also encourages a ‘buy European AI approach, especially for the public sector. We will focus on European open-source AI solutions.

To support all this, we are boosting our European Digital Innovation Hubs to act as AI ‘experience centers where businesses can test and integrate AI solutions.   
These hubs will also facilitate access to EU infrastructure, such as the AI factories.

We are also launching a European Frontier AI initiative to speed up progress in very advanced AI - including major EU-wide competitions to develop frontier AI models.

Finally, the Strategy helps workers by supporting AI literacy training across all sectors. In parallel, we will actively monitor the impact of AI on the labour market.

To coordinate this work, we are launching the Apply AI Alliance, bringing together policymakers and industry leaders.  
It will bring together stakeholders from different sectors and policymakers.

To strengthen trust, the Commission is launching the AI Act Service Desk. The Desk provides all information on the AI Act - our single rulebook for AI.

I want to also highlight the Compliance Checker.
It will help businesses understand their legal duties.

Now, let me turn to the second new plan: the European Strategy for Artificial Intelligence in Science.

It reflects the CERN of AI approach announced by president von der Leyen in February.

Just as we want industry to use AI, we must also focus on research for AI, and using AI in European science across all fields.    

To support this, we will launch the pilot of the Resource for AI Science in Europe – RAISE.

RAISE will bring together strategic resources —funding, computing power, data, and talent — to push the boundaries of AI technology and achieve scientific breakthroughs.

RAISE will operate along 2 main pillars:

Science for AI: supporting basic research to advance core AI capabilities, in particular safe and secure frontier AI.

AI in Science: promoting the use of AI for progress in different scientific fields.

We are also investing heavily in attracting and keeping world-class AI and scientific talent in Europe.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Todays package is another vital step in making Europe a true AI Continent.  

Thank you.