Jan Palmowski, Secretary-General of The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities in Brussels, emphasises the need to seek comparative advantages in the European Union’s pursuit of a new R&I programme amid Donald Trump’s push for AI
Donald Trump’s push for AI is not simply about investment but also values. On 23rd January, he reversed the Biden administration’s concerns to contain the risks of AI as ‘unnecessarily burdensome’, in the interests of America’s ‘economic and national security’.
By asserting the need for AI to be ‘free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas’, the U.S. is actually pushing for the opposite, leaving AI free to reinforce discrimination and stereotypes. It pits the U.S. squarely against the European concern to lead on the development of ‘trustworthy’ AI, articulated in the AI act.
The EU’s global competitiveness and towards the next MFF
To get into gear, the European Commission issued two strategies – its ‘compass’ to achieve global competitiveness and its roadmap towards the next MFF. The first of these recognises head-on that ‘what is at stake for Europe is not just economic growth, but the future of its model’. Across both documents, three themes concerning research and innovation (R&I) are pervasive.
First, European public budgets are squeezed at a time when Europe has to (significantly) beef up its military and R&I expenditure, amongst other priorities: choices will have to be made about the European Union’s (EU) priorities. According to the Commission, business as usual is not an option.
Second, Europe not only needs to increase its R&I expenditure significantly, but it also lacks scale. Bigger EU expenditure must be matched by higher national expenditure, both need alignment through spending on strategic areas, and on breakthrough innovation.
Third, the Commission has now stated in black and white its ambition – first mooted last autumn – to create a ‘Competitiveness Fund’, providing a ‘comprehensive architecture’ for R&I spending which will support strategic projects from research to breakthrough innovation, start-up and manufacturing.
Artificial intelligence EU strategy
While we can see the outlines of a future R&I strategy solidifying, it is important that the EU still take on board emerging geopolitical realities in its future direction. AI is a good example. France has recently unveiled a €109 billion investment in AI and Data infrastructure to mirror the Stargate project – but the lions’ share of the financing in France comes from the United Arab Emirates and Canada, raising significant questions about Europe’s sovereignty in intellectual property.
Still, the Commission could harness the national ambitions of its Member States, putting in a significant investment of its own, realising its ambitions to foreground AI development through initiatives like an AI Research Council, new technology infrastructures, and an EU Cloud and AI Development Act, led by Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty Henna Virkkunen.
Even then, a combined national and EU uplift of R&I spending won’t be enough. With most AI spending coming from private capital, private investment in the U.S. was over $63 billion in 2023, compared to $7.3 billion for China, $5.5 billion for the EU, and $3.5 billion for the UK. Europe needs to invest more – but it can only truly compete if it does things better, and smarter, than the U.S.
As the figures above make clear, one big win – indeed, a necessity – is to bring together AI (and more broadly, R&D investment) from the UK (and, by extension, Switzerland) and the EU: Europe will get nowhere unless it finds a way to align strategies and investment not just within the EU, but also including the European Economic Area (Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein), the UK, Switzerland, and associated members of Horizon Europe further afield.
Bring together researchers in Europe based on excellence
Moreover, Europe has a unique architecture in place to bring together researchers based on excellence, through Horizon Europe, the world’s leading international (and, indeed, global) R&I programme. Its instruments must be optimised – for instance, by fostering top collaborative AI research, including basic research.
And, crucially, even though AI currently captures the public imagination like no other research field, the EU must not fall into the trap of putting all its eggs in that basket. We are in the midst of a scientific revolution, that also includes transformative advances (now or in the near future) in quantum computing, molecular editing and gene editing techniques in the life sciences, as well as advanced materials and batteries. Europe must invest in these and other ground-breaking advances, including in discoveries whose impact is yet unknown.
Perhaps the biggest strategic opportunity for the EU is to capitalise on the strategic mistakes of the U.S. (and other competitors). Given the U.S. administration’s cuts to biomedical research through the much admired National Institutes of Health (NIH) (currently on hold after a court order), now is precisely the time for Europe to expand bottom-up frontier research.
If the U.S. stymies its flagship research programmes, Europe must do the opposite. Now is the time to boost the European Research Council and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, and support research across the entire disciplinary spectrum.
The European Commission is right to push Europe towards sustained increases in R&I spending. However, it needs to be clear that Europe can only remain globally competitive in R&I if its instruments strengthen, rather than undermine, the creativity and freedom of researchers and the breadth of its research base. These must be the foundation of Europe’s R&I push.
