Italy and Spain lead investment in artificial intelligence in the EU

This article was originally published in English

Artificial intelligence is reshaping the global economic landscape, emerging as a fundamental force in the digital domain and promoting innovation in various sectors.

By 2030, it is expected that Artificial Intelligence will have injected more than 11 billion euros into the World economy, according to sector forecasts. It is expected that AI and robotics will jointly promote the creation of around 60 million new jobs worldwide by 2025, underscoring the critical importance of digitalization in driving growth economic. The EU has launched the first legislation to regulate it.

Health and public administration, the most lagging sectors

In a effort agreed to equal the technology leaders Globally, the European Union is intensifying its efforts to integrate and promote AI, placing particular emphasis on strengthening digital infrastructure and capabilities in its member states.

However, despite these optimistic projections, problems persist. obstacles.

Velina Lilyanovaresearcher at the European Parliament Research Service, has highlighted the slow adoption of AI in Europe in critical sectors such as Health and the administration public.

“Europe has a weakness in this sense,” he states in his recent study ‘Investment in artificial intelligence in national recovery and resilience plans’.

Obstacles to the expansion of AI

Lilyanova points out that Europe faces several challenges that hinder the wider adoption of AI, such as regulatory barriersThe problems of trustthe scarcity of skills digital and the low levels of digitalization of companies.

“Member States must address these barriers to facilitate their widespread adoption,” he said, emphasizing the need to introduce regulatory reforms, improve digital skills and promote the digitization of the companies.

The European Comission has set ambitious goals for 2030: to ensure that the 90% of SMEs of the EU reach at least a basic level of digital intensity and that the 75% of EU companies adopt technologies such as computing cloudartificial intelligence and big data.

How do European countries invest in artificial intelligence?

AI investment strategies vary considerably between EU Member States. EUand range from direct financing of research and development (R&D) to indirect support through the digitalization of companies and public services, as detailed by Lilyanova.

He National Recovery and Resilience Plan of Spain allocates funds specifically to strengthen the development of AI, with the aim of positioning the country as a leader in innovation and scientific excellence in artificial intelligence. The plan focuses on tool development and Applications artificial intelligence in Spanish to improve productivity in the private sector and administration efficiency public.

The role of Italy and Denmark

The Strategic Artificial Intelligence Program of Italy by 2024, which aligns with the EU’s broader AI strategy, aims to make Italy a world center for research and artificial intelligence innovation by upskilling and attracting top AI talent.

Denmark leverages its strong R&D ecosystem and high digital intensity among SMEs to improve its national digital strategy, incorporating AI to improve public administration through reforms.

Race towards AI: which European countries are leading the investment?

He Joint Research Center of the European Commission has carried out a comprehensive analysis of AI-related funding in EU countries.

According to a 2023 study by Papazoglu and others, the Next Generation EU instrument and its Recovery and Resilience Mechanism represent 70% of total investments in digital transformation.

Specifically, of the 116.8 billion euros allocated by the Recovery and Resilience Facility of the European Commission’s Next Generation EU fund to the Digital Decade, 4,376 million euros are allocated to Projects of Artificial Intelligence.

A breakdown of national investments reveals that Italy is in the lead, as it plans to allocate 1,895 million euros to projects related to AI. It follows Spain with 1,200 million euros. Together, the two southern European nations represent the 71% of total investments assigned to AI-related projects within the NGEU RRF. Behind them are Germany and France with less than a third of investment.

Denmark leads in relative terms, dedicating 8.7% of its digital RRF budget to AI projects, followed by Spainwith 6.4%, and Irelandwith 5.2%.

European countries spend an average of almost 3% of your digitization funds to AI projects.

Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium and Austria are on the lower end, dedicating less than 1% of their RRF budgets to AI-related projects.