to react to the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the European Council, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Artificial Intelligence for Europe, COM(2018) 237 final
to point out that local and regional public sectors should not be disregarded, as they should play an important role in investing in AI, boosting investments and facilitating AI ecosystems in their territories;
to emphasize the role of regional Digital Innovation Hubs in the development of AI
to endorse the idea of facilitating interactions between the European Artificial Intelligence Alliance and the European Parliament, the Member States, the European Economic and Social Committee and the European Committee of the Regions;
The opinion was adopted too recently to assess its impact.
THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS
welcomes the Artificial intelligence for Europe communication and fully supports the aim of working out a common approach in order to boost investment, prepare for socio-economic changes, increase legal certainty for artificial intelligence (AI) operations and draft ethical guidelines;
takes the view that local and regional authorities should contribute to setting the conditions and a favourable environment for an increase in investment in AI in the years ahead and that these measures should be coordinated at national and European level in order to empower Europeans to become both producers and consumers of innovations;
points out that the stated measures do not cover the public sector at local and regional level and believes that these two levels of governance and administration should not be overlooked, since they have an important role in investing in AI and in the promotion of investment and the AI ecosystem in their areas;
stresses in particular that the EU’s various policy measures and programmes (such as the EFSI, European Structural and Investment Funds, Horizon Europe, Digital Europe and Erasmus) must be better dovetailed in order to advance artificial intelligence, and calls for a clear vision to this effect;
stresses in this connection the need to bolster interregional cooperation through smart specialisation strategies. This means intra- and interregional collaboration founded on cooperation and decision-making by stakeholders from industry, research and innovation that facilitates demand-led innovation and collective solutions that can, among other things, pave the way for artificial intelligence in both public and private sectors;