Enhance EU’s competitiveness and economic growth through AI
By Dara Calleary T.D., Minister of State for Trade Promotion, Digital and Company Regulation, IRELAND
The surge in AI deployment and continued unabated in 2024, driven by the successive releases of new systems from the leading providers, each claiming a step change in performance over their predecessors and competitors.
While policy makers must be careful to discern marketing hype from reality, the indications are that rate of advance will not slacken in 2025.
2024 also saw the release of The Future of European Competitiveness report[1], prepared by Mario Draghi, Special Advisor to the President of the European Commission and former President of the European Central Bank. The report sets out in stark terms the factors undermining EU competitiveness and puts forward proposals for remedying the situation.
The report identifies three main areas for action, the first of which is closing the EU’s innovation gap with the United States and China. A key component of this strategy is integrating new technologies like artificial intelligence into our industrial sector. Crucially, Draghi proposes that we need to shift our orientation from trying to restrain this technology to understanding how to benefit from it.
While AI is not a panacea for EU competitiveness, AI can have a transformative impact on competitiveness, if effectively harnessed. For example,
- AI is already being used to make advances in science and medicine e.g. in October 2024 the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to Demis Hassabis, a scientist at Google DeepMind for using AI to predict the structure of proteins.
- AI can analyse data in entirely new ways and reveal information and patterns previously hidden from us e.g. satellite imagery of agriculture land use, weather data, engineering data.
- AI can be harnessed by Government and public bodies to provide better, and more accessible, public services.
- AI will help companies to increase their productivity, to reduce their costs, to be more innovative and to provide better services to their customers.
The challenge for policy makers is to expedite the adoption of AI in the EU. This will not happen automatically; we must ensure that the necessary enablers are in place. Principal among those are AI skills, from simple skills to use AI as a productivity-boosting assistant, to the advanced technical skills needed to develop and train AI systems.
We must provide appropriate education and training opportunities, tailored to the needs of distinct cohorts, from those in full-time education, to workers participating in life-long learning.
Another prerequisite for the widespread adoption of AI is public trust in AI systems and reassurance that they are being used ethically and responsibility. To this end, 2024 saw the entry into force of the pioneering EU AI Act. It is designed to protection people’s health, safety and fundamental rights, in a risked-based manner so that its provisions are targeted and proportionate. This will ensure that the EU remains competitive for AI investment and innovation. I am confident that other jurisdictions will look to the EU’s leadership in AI regulation, to enhance public confidence in AI. Such confidence can grow innovation.
To that end the AI Act contains specific measures to promote innovation, including the establishment of AI regulatory sandboxes which will provide businesses opportunities to develop, test and validate their AI systems under the guidance of regulators.
I had the honour of chairing the Ministerial Meeting of the D9+ Group of EU digital leaders in April 2024 where we adopted a declaration[2] highlighting the need for an effective balance between stimulating innovation and necessary regulation in the digital economy. We advocated for particular consideration of the critical role of startups and scaleups in boosting the EU’s competitiveness and innovation.
Only 8% of SMEs currently use AI – this must change. It has never been more important that the EU abide by the principle of “think small first” in relation to regulatory requirements.
President von der Leyen has set the goal for the EU to become a global leader in AI innovation and key deliverables for the new European Commission include the AI Factories initiative to ensure access to tailored supercomputing capacity for AI start-ups and industry; the Apply AI Strategy to boost new industrial uses of AI and to improve the delivery of a variety of public services, such as healthcare; the EU Cloud and AI Development Act to increase computational capacity and create an EU-wide framework for providing ‘computational capital’ to innovative SMEs; and the European AI Research Council where the EU can pool all of our resources, similar to the approach taken with CERN.
Ireland’s national approach is strongly aligned with this ambition and I was pleased to publish a refresh of our National AI Strategy in 2024[3], which sets the vision that Ireland will be an international leader in using AI to the benefit of our population. The strategy contains a comprehensive suite of actions, spanning seven themes to make this vision a reality: governance; society; serving the public; enterprise; education; research; and infrastructure.
In 2024 I also appointed 15 AI Experts to act as Ireland’s AI Advisory Council[4] to ensure that my Government has access to independent, expert advice on AI as it continues to evolve.
I am convinced that with a concerted effort involving all stakeholders in the EU, AI can play a pivotal role in re-invigorating EU competitiveness and propelling its economy on a sustainable growth trajectory for the benefits of all its citizens.
[1] The future of European competitiveness
[2] D9+ Ministerial Meeting in Dublin, 19 April 2024: Ministerial Declaration
