A new European Commission report presented at the commission’s Industry Day event on Friday has been welcomed by DIGITALEUROPE.
The report was prepared by the commission’s high-level strategy group on industrial technologies and presented ahead of the Industry Day workshop on ‘Technologies of the Future’ workshop, at which gathered stakeholders discussed how connectivity infrastructure will facilitate a revolution in the digital transformation of a number of industries.
Technologies explored in the report include 5G, cyber and artificial intelligence (AI). The commission has expressed its desire for Europe to become a world leader in these areas, and the new report explores challenges and the need to invest in new key enabling technologies (KETs) to make this a reality.
How was the report received?
DIGITALEUROPE represents some 25,000 companies in the digital technology industry in Europe, including 60 corporate members and 37 national trade associations. Its members are among the world’s largest IT, telecoms and consumer electronics companies.
The organisation’s director general, Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, insisted that the results of the report mean more investment will be necessary to achieve the EU’s ambition of being a world leader in digital technology.
She explained: “5G, cyber and AI must be at the heart of European investments to boost innovation, growth and job creation in Europe. 83% of all AI investments are forecasted to be outside EU, and the EU only invests half that of the US in connecting all citizens to a modern digital world. EU investments in digital must double compared to Horizon 2020.”
What does the report recommend?
The Industry Day report identifies three challenges which the European digital industry must face, alongside broader economic and social challenges, in order to make progress. These are:
- Increasingly knowledge-intensive production;
- Digitisation; and
- Globalisation, including competition from emerging economies.
In response, the report recommends an expansion of the definition of KETs based on four criteria: impact, relevance, key capacity, and enabling power. Further, it suggests a reduction of the current six KETs into four broader categories, and adding two new primary categories: artificial intelligence, and digital security and connectivity.
