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The European Commission has initiated a public consultation regarding the implementation of regulations for the high-risk AI systems under the new AI legislation. The consultation aims to gather practical examples and clarify issues surrounding high-risk AI systems. The consultation’s outcomes would help in drafting the forthcoming Commission guidelines on the classification of high-risk AI systems and their associated requirements.
Background
For years, the Commission has been facilitating and enhancing cooperation on AI across the EU to boost its competitiveness and ensure trust based on EU values. The Commission’s White Paper on AI, published in 2020, set out a clear vision for AI in Europe: an ecosystem of excellence and trust. In April 2021, the Commission proposed the EU AI Act and a new Coordinated Plan with the member states, to guarantee the safety and fundamental rights of people and businesses, while strengthening investment and innovation across EU countries.
The EU AI Act was provisionally agreed by the EU co-legislators in December 2023 to become the first global comprehensive law on Artificial Intelligence, AI.
Some recent history: in January 2024, the Commission launched a package of measures to support European startups and SMEs in the development of trustworthy AIs; in July 2024 the amended EuroHPC JU Regulation entered into force, allowing the set-up of AI Factories. Then, in August 2024 the AI Act entered partially into force and guidelines on prohibited AI practices were published.
In December 2024, seven consortia were selected to establish AI Factories, followed by six additional consortia in March 2025. At the AI Action Summit in Paris on 11 February 2025, President von der Leyen announced InvestAI, an initiative to mobilise a €200 billion investment in AI across Europe.
Reference to: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_383
High-risk concept in AI
The European AI legislation defines high-risk AI systems in two categories:
a) those important for product safety under EU harmonised legislation on product safety, and
b) those that could significantly impact people’s health, safety, or fundamental rights in specific scenarios outlined in the AI act.
The Commission has welcomed input from a broad range of stakeholders, including providers and developers of high-risk AI systems, businesses and public authorities using such systems, as well as academia, research institutions, civil society, governments, supervisory authorities and citizens in general.
However, the present consultation will run for six weeks and will conclude in mid-July 2025; the AI act in full is expected to enter into force in 2027.
Reference to: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_1013
More in: https://www.integrin.dk/2025/04/10/ais-continental-plan-europe-heads-toward-global-digital-leadership/
According to the EU digital Commissioner’s opinion, Europe has “an unparalleled pool of top talents”, i.e. EU’s universities and research institutions are among the best in the world: the EU-27 is having today 30% more AI researchers than in the US. Besides, the EU has a vibrant ecosystem of dynamic startups that are driving key innovations in the development of AI frontier models and in applications across various sectors, from healthcare to robotics to manufacturing.
However, the AI system in Europe is lagging behind those in the US and China and other competing partners.
On AI Action Plan in: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/ai-continent-action-plan
AI innovation package
Already in January 2024, the Commission launched a package of measures to support European startups and SMEs in the development of trustworthy AI models that respect EU values and rules. This follows the political agreement reached in December 2023 on the EU AI Act – the world’s first comprehensive AI law – which will support the development, deployment and take-up of trustworthy AI in the EU.
Thus, in the 2023 State of the Union address, Commission President announced a new initiative to make Europe’s supercomputers available to innovative European AI startups to train their trustworthy AI models. As a first step, the Commission launched in November 2023 the Large AI Grand Challenge, a prize giving AI startups financial support and supercomputing access. The package puts this commitment into practice through a broad range of measures to support AI startups and innovation, including a proposal to provide privileged access to supercomputers to AI startups and the broader innovation community. It contains:
= An amendment of the EuroHPC Regulation to set up AI Factories, a new pillar for the EU’s supercomputers Joint Undertaking activities. This includes: -acquiring, upgrading and operating AI-dedicated supercomputers to enable fast machine learning and training of large General Purpose AI (GPAI) models; – facilitating access to the AI dedicated supercomputers, contributing to the widening of the use of AI to a large number of public and private users, including startups and SMEs; – offering a one-stop shop for startups and innovators, supporting the AI startup and research ecosystem in algorithmic development, testing evaluation and validation of large-scale AI models, providing supercomputer-friendly programming facilities and other AI enabling services; – enabling the development of a variety of emerging AI applications based on General Purpose AI models.
= A decision to establish an AI Office within the Commission, which will ensure the development and coordination of AI policy at European level, as well as supervise the implementation and enforcement of the forthcoming AI Act.
= An EU AI Start-Up and Innovation Communication outlining additional key activities: – financial support from the Commission through Horizon Europe and the Digital Europe program dedicated to generative AI. This package will generate an additional overall public and private investment of around €4 billion until 2027; – accompanying initiatives to strengthen EU’s generative AI talent pool through education, training, skilling and reskilling activities; – further encourage public and private investments in AI start-ups and scale-ups, including through venture capital or equity support (including via new initiatives of the EIC accelerator Programme and InvestEU); – the acceleration of the development and deployment of Common European Data Spaces, made available to the AI community, for whom data is a key resource to train and improve their models. A new Staff Working Document on common European data spaces has also been just published, providing the latest state of play; – the ‘GenAI4EU’ initiative, which aims to support the development of novel use cases and emerging applications in Europe’s 14 industrial ecosystems, as well as the public sector (application areas include robotics, health, biotech, manufacturing, mobility, climate and virtual worlds).
= The Commission is also establishing, with a number of member states, two European Digital Infrastructure Consortiums (EDICs):
a) the ‘Alliance for Language Technologies’ (ALT-EDIC) aimed to develop a common European infrastructure in language technologies to address the shortage of European languages data for the training of AI solutions, as well as to uphold Europe’s linguistic diversity and cultural richness. This will support the development of European large language models.
b) the ‘CitiVERSE’ EDIC, which will apply state-of-the-art AI-tools to develop and enhance Local Digital Twins for Smart Communities, helping cities simulate and optimize processes, from traffic management to waste management.
Source: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_383
Generative AI in the EU transformation
Commission’s opinion suggests that the generative AI is going to transform EU economy; but the process requires further policy and economic actions.
Generative AI (GenAI) could significantly boost innovation and productivity across key sectors in the EU, from healthcare to education and the cultural and creative industries, according to a new scientific report by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC).
Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation, E. Zaharieva notes that Europe has the “potential to lead in generative AI”; i.e. with the right policies and investments the member states can drive competitiveness and innovation. From the EU side, an independent scientific advice helps the states to rip the benefits of the complex and fast-paced technology such as generative AI.
Thus, the Commission launched recently a first wave of the EU funding programs of about €700 million to integrate generative AI in the Europe-wide strategic sectors such as manufacturing, robotics, health and/or energy. Researchers, innovators, industrial companies, and others applying will become part of GenAI4EU, the Commission’s flagship initiative to boost Generative AI “made in Europe”.
Source and citation from: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/generative-ai-set-transform-eu-economy-requires-further-policy-action?pk_source=ec_newsroom&pk_medium=email&pk_campaign=Shaping%20Europe%27s%20Digital%20Future%20website%20updates/en
Possible postponements
EU could postpone implementing some of the AI rules: developments and analyses of the EU artificial intelligence law suggest a possibility of potential delays for certain aspects of the AI Act, “if standards and guidelines are not ready in time during a meeting with EU digital ministers”, said the European Commission’s technology chief. Following intense lobbying, including from the US administration, companies are awaiting additional guidance and technical standards to meet their compliance requirements. Industry representatives have been advocating for a ‘stop-the-clock’ mechanism to postpone implementation dates if necessary guidelines are not ready.
Some EU member state’ministers expressed support for potential delays: e.g. Poland’s junior digital minister, Dariusz Standerski, said that while the industry’s request was reasonable, any delay must be accompanied by a clear action plan. He also emphasized recently that merely postponing deadlines without purpose would be futile and stressed that simplification involves more than just reducing regulations, highlighting the importance of impact assessments, implementation costs, as well as using technology to make compliance easier.
On comparison between the US-EU approaches to AI regulations in: https://www.integrin.dk/2025/04/18/the-us-approaches-to-ai-recent-legal-aspects/
General remark
It has to be specifically mentioned the digital transition’s close connections with the overall political-economy’s structures, both in the EU member states and the EU-27.
Thus, in the EU-wide digital transition, the digital sovereignty has acquired an extremely vital importance: i.e. as it includes not only national/regional security but political-economy and societal aspects as well.
Hence, the EU is seeking to reduce both its dependence on foreign technology providers (mainly from the US and Asia) and minimize control on its digital infrastructure. However, “transit” to different “open sources”, such as NextCloud, LibreOffice and/or Linux (to name a few) could not be that easy…
More information on the issues in the following Commission’s web-links: = EU AI Start-Up and Innovation Communication; = Amendment to Regulation establishing the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking; = European Artificial Intelligence Act; = Commission Decision establishing the European Artificial Intelligence Office; = AI Pact; = The European Digital Infrastructure Consortium (EDIC); = Staff Working Document on Common European Data Spaces.