European Union's Efforts to Boost AI Investment Criticized by Auditors

The European Commission did not coordinate well to increase investments in artificial intelligence (AI) like other global leaders from 2018 to 2022. The European Court of Auditors (ECA) mentioned this in a report published on May 29. They released two plans in 2018 and 2021 to catch up with competitors, but unfortunately, the gap has grown bigger. In 2023, the US received €62.5 billion in private investment, which is seven times more than the EU and UK's €9 billion. The ECA talked to officers at the Commission, the European Investment Fund, and 23 national authorities of member states, with 20 of them responsible for AI policy. They also checked 10 AI projects funded by Horizon 2020. The court found that the targets were not updated as the investment gap with the US increased. Coordination with national authorities was not effective, and only one expert group per member state was in charge of coordinating plans. The EU executive body also did not thoroughly review how the 2018 and 2021 AI plans were carried out in member states. The European Commission needs to invest more in artificial intelligence to reach its goals and compete with the US and China, according to the European Court of Auditors (ECA). The ECA stated this in a report released on May 29. The auditors, who check EU finances, mentioned that despite creating AI regulations, the Commission did not work well with individual member states on AI policies and did not consistently monitor investments. The audit, done through surveys at the 27 national authorities overseeing AI policies, focused on how effective the Commission was in supervising national AI plans in 2018 and 2021, regulatory changes, and EU-funded measures to promote AI innovations. The report showed that bloc-wide and national measures were not well coordinated because the Commission lacked the necessary tools and information. Additionally, the Commission was slow in setting up new facilities to introduce AI innovations into the market, partly due to delays in adopting the Digital Europe funding program. "Significant and targeted AI investments can greatly impact the speed of EU economic growth in the future," said ECA member Mihails Kozlovs, who led the audit. In simpler terms, the European Commission did not work together effectively to boost investments in artificial intelligence like other top countries. This caused a big gap between the EU and the US in AI investments. The auditors suggested that the EU needs to invest more in AI to keep up with global competition and achieve its goals.