The European Commission will boost its investment in artificial intelligence (AI) by about 70 percent to 1.5 billion euros ($1.83 billion) by 2020 to catch up with Asia and the United States, which are each investing at least three times more than Europe.
The Commission said its 1.5 billion-euro investment ought to trigger an additional 2.5 billion euros from existing public-private partnerships, for example on big data and robotics. To help stimulate investment the Commission also proposed legislation to open up more public sector data for re-use, such as the data held by transport authorities and utilities.
The Commission, the EU executive, wants total private and public investment in AI to reach at least 20 billion euros by the end of 2020 to ensure the bloc retains competitiveness and does not face a brain drain.
In 2016, European private investments in AI totalled around 2.4-3.2 billion euros, compared to Asia's almost 10 billion euros and America's 18 billion euros.