AI & Data Capabilities and Deployment

The European AI Observatory is one of the governance measures in the Commission's Apply AI Strategy, adopted on 8 October 2025. The Commission says it will set up an AI Observatory to provide indicators to assess the impact of AI in the sectors covered by the strategy and in future sectors, to monitor developments and trends, and to follow the changes AI may bring to the labour market. The Observatory will also support the organisation of sectoral discussions and will be used for political analysis and decision making, as well as for informing the AI community and the broader public about recent developments in the field. The Commission adds that, based on the monitoring activities, it will make a proposal, in the context of the Digital Decade, for a public and private AI investment target.

AI Gigafactories will give Europe frontier-scale compute to train state-of-the-art models. Each site will exceed 100,000 high-performance processors, be designed for energy and water efficiency and circularity, and be federated with EuroHPC’s AI Factories. Financing will blend public-private partnerships with the InvestAI Facility and an official EuroHPC call in Q4 2025. Facilities will co-locate data, training, safety and evaluation capabilities; provide shared access for startups, researchers and the public sector; and anchor regional skills pipelines. As a pilot for the Competitiveness Coordination Tool, they will crowd-in private capital, spur EU AI-chip design ahead of the 2026 Chips Act review, and secure sovereign AI capacity.

The action plan sets out measures to make advanced AI capabilities available for cybersecurity while addressing AI-enabled threats. It covers an EU evaluation capacity for AI models, structured access to advanced capabilities, secure testing, guidance, vulnerability management and training. It also proposes a pilot campaign on critical open-source resilience, an EU Grand Challenge for AI-powered cybersecurity solutions, and use of AI Factories' computing capacity for cyber resilience.

On 3 June 2026 the Commission appointed Jim Hagemann Snabe as Special Envoy for Industrial Artificial Intelligence. The Commission says he will advise President Ursula von der Leyen and Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen on industrial AI. His advisory role covers the entire industrial AI ecosystem, with a particular focus on AI infrastructure, including data centres, high-performance computing and the semiconductor supply chains, together with foundational AI technologies such as large language models, generative AI and cloud services, and AI applications across industrial sectors. The Special Envoy is to deliver a report on industrial AI that the Commission describes as evidence-based and forward-looking, with actionable recommendations aimed at strengthening Europe's digital sovereignty. Mr Hagemann Snabe holds the status of a non-remunerated Special Adviser until 31 March 2027 and will suspend his membership of the Google Cloud advisory board and the C3.ai board during the mandate.

The Frontier AI Initiative is announced in the Commission's Apply AI Strategy, adopted on 8 October 2025, in the section on supporting AI as a production factor. The Commission says it will launch and coordinate a Frontier AI Initiative to accelerate progress in frontier AI capabilities in Europe by bringing together Europe's leading industrial and academic actors and supporting strategic efforts. The initiative will focus on unlocking advanced capabilities through cutting-edge AI architectures and high-quality data, using the computing capacity offered by the AI Factories and Gigafactories. Alongside it, the Commission says it will launch major EU-wide competitions to develop open frontier AI models, and that these projects will receive free access to EuroHPC supercomputers. The strategy does not give the initiative a dedicated budget or name the body that will administer it.

Embedded in the AI Factories ecosystem, Data Labs will federate datasets and link them to the relevant Common European Data Spaces, giving developers a single, trusted entry point to high-value data. They will provide AI developers with large volumes of high-quality data in health, energy and other domains under clear access conditions and governance. Beyond brokerage, they will offer value-added services: dataset cleaning and enrichment; standardised formats; synthetic data; and shared technical building blocks that strengthen interoperability across sectors and borders, with data-pooling compliant with competition rules via trusted intermediaries under the Data Governance Act. The Commission’s Simpl software will lower integration costs and expand participation.

The Digital Omnibus on AI proposes changes to simplify implementation of the AI Act while maintaining protections for health, safety and fundamental rights. It responds to delayed standards, guidance and national authorities that could raise compliance costs for high-risk AI systems. The proposal would link the application of certain high-risk obligations to the availability of measures that support compliance, and would also amend EU aviation-safety rules.

The Commission will table a simplification package to cut compliance costs in the digital acquis while preserving protections. It will rationalise data rules (i.e. DGA, Free Flow of Non-Personal Data, Open Data), modernise cookie/tracking provisions to curb consent fatigue, and streamline overlapping cybersecurity incident reporting, with targeted adjustments to ensure predictable application of the AI Act. It will also clarify obligations under the European Digital Identity framework and align with the forthcoming Business Wallet, applying ‘one-in, one-out’. A Digital Fitness Check will assess cumulative effects and cross-border fragmentation.

The strategy will establish a simpler, coherent EU framework for secure, large-scale data sharing between businesses and public administrations to power AI. It will align and streamline existing rules and practices, strengthen cross-border interoperability, and embed robust safeguards for confidentiality, integrity, security and IP. Concretely, it will: promote common technical and semantic standards (e.g. schemas, metadata, APIs); enable trusted data intermediaries and data-pooling mechanisms; expand access via privacy-preserving methods (e.g. anonymisation, synthetic data, secure processing); and clarify fair, transparent licensing for B2B and public-private data use. Closely linked to AI Factories, new Data Labs will federate sectoral datasets and connect to Common European Data Spaces to unlock high-quality training data at scale.

Antennas will extend Europe’s AI compute to every region by giving Member States without local supercomputers a light-footprint node that offers remote access to the AI-optimised resources of a linked AI Factory in another country. They will plug into EuroHPC’s single entry point and common access policy, enabling streamlined allocation of compute and support services, with tailored fast tracks for startups, SMEs and selected EU projects. Antennas will interconnect with AI Factories, European Digital Innovation Hubs, Testing & Experimentation Facilities, and emerging Data Labs to deliver hands-on training, testing, and data services. All Antennas and Factories will be networked EU-wide for consistent access and support.

The Service Desk will be the EU’s single-entry helpdesk and information platform for AI Act compliance. Hosted by the AI Office, it will offer free, tailored guidance for companies and public authorities—especially SMEs—plus interactive self-assessment tools, decision trees, FAQs, templates and practical advice on obligations, risk classification, conformity assessment and documentation. It will also route users to national competent authorities and consolidate standards and best-practice resources so compliance is faster, cheaper and consistent across the Single Market.

Apply AI Alliance is the strategy's main coordination forum, bringing together AI providers, industry leaders, academia and the public sector so policy action reflects real-world needs. The wider Apply AI Strategy seeks to increase AI adoption and innovation, particularly among SMEs, support an 'AI first' approach, and promote a 'buy European' approach in the public sector. Its sectoral measures cover 10 key industries and public services, alongside support through Experience Centres for AI, AI Factories, testing facilities and regulatory sandboxes.

The Strategy adopts an “AI-first” approach to accelerate adoption across flagship sectors (including health, robotics, manufacturing, defence/space, mobility, telecoms, energy, environment, agri-food, and culture/media) backed by around €1 billion from EU programmes to catalyse deployment. It tackles cross-cutting barriers by turning EDIHs into AI Experience Centres for SMEs, building frontier capabilities via a new Frontier AI initiative, and providing clear, practical support for AI Act compliance through guidance and a Service Desk. Governance is unified through an Apply AI Alliance and an AI Observatory to set KPIs and monitor impact, complemented by the AI in Science and Data Union strategies.

The network of European Digital Innovation Hubs will be transformed into AI Experience Centres, covering 85 % of European regions and fully integrated with the AI Factories ecosystem. These centres will provide companies and public administrations with hands-on access to computing power, high-quality data, testing and experimentation environments, regulatory sandboxes, and tailored training. By linking AI deployment directly to Europe’s supercomputing and data infrastructure, the Experience Centres will accelerate the uptake of AI across sectors, foster innovation in strategic industries, and ensure that European businesses can test, scale, and adopt AI solutions under trusted conditions

Will scale Europe’s generative-AI capacity through targeted R&I and deployment across sectors. Around €700 million in Horizon Europe and Digital Europe calls will fund advanced models and solutions (e.g. to optimise manufacturing lines, improve robot autonomy and human-robot collaboration, strengthen cyber-defence, and enhance medical imaging) while up to four public-sector pilots will accelerate adoption by improving decision-making, streamlining processes, and making services more accessible. Building on the AI Innovation Package and the AI Continent Action Plan, the calls in Q1 2026 will prioritise high-impact uses and innovation procurement to crowd-in private investment and translate research outputs into market-ready solutions.

Digital Europe funds projects that move digital technology from research towards market deployment, with a focus on supercomputing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, semiconductors, advanced digital skills and wider use of digital technologies. The programme supports the EU's green and digital objectives, resilience and digital sovereignty. It is intended to benefit citizens and businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, through direct and indirect management.

Will provide trusted, interoperable environments for cross-sector and cross-border data use, turning today’s fragmented datasets into high-value shared resources for businesses and public administrations. Linked tightly to Data Labs, they will offer services such as dataset cleaning and enrichment, standardised formats, synthetic data, shared technical building blocks, and cross-space interoperability to accelerate AI development and deployment. Antitrust-compliant data pooling will be enabled via trusted data intermediaries and governance under the EU data framework, lowering barriers for SMEs while protecting confidentiality and security. A common software layer (e.g. SIMPL) will simplify access and reuse across spaces, strengthening Europe’s AI ecosystem and data economy.

The program will mobilise €200 billion to scale Europe’s AI capacity through a layered public-private fund that de-risks private capital with the EU budget and national co-financing. It will finance four AI gigafactories each with around 100,000 latest-generation AI chips, creating the world’s largest PPP for trustworthy AI and giving startups and industry broad access to compute. Initial EU contributions will come from Digital Europe, Horizon Europe and InvestEU, with cohesion funding from Member States. InvestAI complements the €10 billion AI Factories programme and serves as a pilot for strategic-technology financing under the Competitiveness Compass.

Open, EU-wide hubs built around EuroHPC supercomputers that bundle AI-optimised compute, data storage, programming support and talent to develop frontier models and applications. Startups, SMEs, researchers and public bodies get streamlined one-stop access to computing time, data labs linked to Common European Data Spaces, and services for testing, validation and skills—cutting training from months to weeks and lowering costs. The first 13 Factories across 17 Member States are networked, with AI Factory Antennas extending reach. EuroHPC will provide a single entry point and procure AI-dedicated systems in 2025/26, tripling Europe’s available AI capacity.

The AI Pact is a voluntary preparatory framework for organisations ahead of the AI Act's implementation. Its first pillar convenes stakeholders to exchange experience, best practices and information through the AI Office. Its second invites providers and deployers to publish pledges covering actions and timelines, including governance, mapping likely high-risk systems, and staff awareness and literacy. Pledges are not legally binding and impose no legal obligations.