Category: Digital

Posted on

Europe boosts European AI developers with the AI Factories call for proposals

Ai3

Today, the Commission has launched a call for setting up AI Factories to boost European leadership in trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI). AI Factories will be created around the EU’s world-class network of European High-Performance Computing (HPC) supercomputers and will be available to a range of European users, such as startups, industry and researchers.

President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen said: “Europe is already leading the way with the EU AI Act, ensuring AI is safer and more trustworthy. Earlier this year, we fulfilled our promise by opening our high-performance computers to European AI start-ups. Now, Europe must also become a global leader in AI innovation. AI Factories will help secure our position at the forefront of this transformative technology.”

AI Factories will bring together the key ingredients for success in AI: computing power, data and talent. They will help AI developers train their large generative AI models by using the EuroHPC supercomputers and providing access to data, computing and storage services. The Factories will be networked across Europe, providing a unique European collaborative AI framework. Continue reading “Europe boosts European AI developers with the AI Factories call for proposals”

Posted on

Embracing the digital transition to help fight VAT fraud and support EU businesses

Digital Business

The European Commission today proposed a series of measures to modernise and make the EU’s Value-Added Tax (VAT) system work better for businesses and more resilient to fraud by embracing and promoting digitalisation. Today’s proposal also aims to address challenges in the area of VAT raised by the development of the platform economy.

Member States lost €93 billion in VAT revenues in 2020 according to the latest VAT Gap figures also published today. Conservative estimates suggest that one quarter of the missing revenues can be attributed directly to VAT fraud linked to intra-EU trade. These losses are clearly detrimental to overall public finances at a time when Member States are adjusting budgets to deal with the social and economic effects of recent energy price spikes and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. In addition, VAT arrangements in the EU can still be burdensome for businesses, especially for SMEs, and other companies who operate or are looking to scale-up cross-border. Continue reading “Embracing the digital transition to help fight VAT fraud and support EU businesses”

Posted on

New EU cybersecurity strategy is step forward

Cybersecurity

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) welcomes the proposed new package of EU cybersecurity measures but points to weaknesses in addressing Europe’s huge cyber skills gap. Critical entities also need streamlining, simplification and clearer application guidelines, in the EESC’s view.

Overall, the EESC hails the new EU cybersecurity strategy as a positive step towards protecting governments, people and businesses from cyber threats, and safeguarding economic growth – an area where the EU appears to be highly vulnerable, with the economic impact of cybercrime estimated at 0.84% of GDP, compared to 0.78% in North America.

Cybersecurity skills in dangerously short supply

However, the EESC stresses that there is a critical shortage of cybersecurity skills in Europe and that the strategy will not be sufficient to meet it. Demand for cybersecurity professionals has been growing in recent years and has been skyrocketing with the pandemic. As organisations quickly shifted their operations online and 40% of EU workers switched to remote working in 2020, an estimated 40% of EU users experienced security-related issues in 2020, with over 12% of businesses affected by cyberattacks. Continue reading “New EU cybersecurity strategy is step forward”