AI opens window of opportunities for EU - Draghi report

(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 12 - Reversing course or resigning to a slow agony are the alternatives faced by Europe amid an existential challenge that requires a new industrial strategy in order to be won, according to a report on the future of EU competitiveness presented by former Italian premier and European central banker Mario Draghi this week.
    The first pillar outlined by Draghi's blueprint on competitiveness is innovation.
    In order to stop the decline and be productive again, a meaningful acceleration is necessary, the report suggests, eyeing in particular the digital revolution sparked by artificial intelligence as a "window" of opportunities for Europe.
    It is imperative to gain lost ground compared to the United States due to the EU's inability to capitalize on the previous digital revolution guided by the Internet, notes the report.
    "We made an experiment - explained the former governor of the European Central Bank (ECB) -we removed the US high tech sector and compared again the economy of the United States and of the EU.
    "We saw that, in that case, they could be compared and, actually, EU productivity would be slightly better", he observed.
    However, conditions for a new beginning are not the most promising.
    On the eve of the new digital revolution, the report photographs an EU that has fallen behind in innovative technologies that will lead future growth - starting with artificial intelligence.
    Since 2017, 73% of foundation models, observed the report, have been developed in the United States.
    When the main AI start-ups are considered worldwide, 61% of global funding goes to US companies, 17% to Chinese companies and only 6% to businesses in the EU.
    The few European champions in the development of generative AI models, like Germany's Aleph Alpha and France's Mistral, need great investments to compete with US businesses, a need that drives European companies to seek funding abroad.
    Overall, this weak position of the EU could impact the economy in the future, with different industrial sectors risking to lose market shares because they are unable to exploit the competitive advantage generated by AI.
    And if the barriers to the development of emerging technologies identified in the report are different, Draghi saves the most pointed criticism to European legislation on privacy and AI - the GDPR privacy law and AI Act.
    "With this legislation that we have given ourselves, we are self-destructing, we are killing our companies", he warned, stressing how the complexity of laws and the risk of overlapping could halt innovation in the sector.
    The report, for example, notes that the EU today has some 100 laws on technologies and over 270 authorities of regulation active in digital networks in all member States.
    Draghi's recipe for the EU to become a leader in AI includes a wide range of proposals.
    A key role, according to the report, will be played by the vertical integration of AI in European industry.
    "In order to prosper in an increasingly heated global technological race - the report said - the EU needs to exploit the development and implementation of 'vertical AI', or cases of innovative use of AI technologies in key industrial sectors" like automotive, robotics, the pharmaceutical industry, to mention a few.
    Such sectors are expected to be completely changed by AI.
    (ANSA).