What changed

PR_CNS_LegAct_am

P9_TA(2024)0359

Symbols for procedures

EuroHPC initiative for start-ups to boost European leadership in trustworthy Artificial Intelligence

* Consultation procedure

Committee on Industry, Research and Energy

*** Consent procedure

PE759.744

***I Ordinary legislative procedure (first reading)

European Parliament legislative resolution of 24 April 2024 on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EU) 2021/1173 as regards an EuroHPC initiative for start-ups to boost European leadership in trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (COM(2024)0029 – C9-0013/2024 – 2024/0016(CNS))

***II Ordinary legislative procedure (second reading)

***III Ordinary legislative procedure (third reading)

(The type of procedure depends on the legal basis proposed by the draft act.)

Amendments to a draft act

Amendments by Parliament set out in two columns

Deletions are indicated in bold italics in the left-hand column. Replacements are indicated in bold italics in both columns. New text is indicated in bold italics in the right-hand column.

The first and second lines of the header of each amendment identify the relevant part of the draft act under consideration. If an amendment pertains to an existing act that the draft act is seeking to amend, the amendment heading includes a third line identifying the existing act and a fourth line identifying the provision in that act that Parliament wishes to amend.

Amendments by Parliament in the form of a consolidated text

New text is highlighted in bold italics. Deletions are indicated using either the ▌symbol or strikeout. Replacements are indicated by highlighting the new text in bold italics and by deleting or striking out the text that has been replaced.

By way of exception, purely technical changes made by the drafting departments in preparing the final text are not highlighted.

DRAFT EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT LEGISLATIVE RESOLUTION

on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EU) 2021/1173 as regards an EuroHPC initiative for start-ups to boost European leadership in trustworthy Artificial Intelligence

(COM(2024)0029 – C90013/2024 – 2024/0016(CNS))

(Special legislative procedure – consultation)

(2) Since 2021, when Council Regulation (EU) 2021/1173 was adopted, the field of artificial intelligence (AI) has seen enormous technical progress and become a highly strategic and contested domain globally. The Union is at the forefront of efforts to support ethical and responsible innovation in trustworthy AI, while setting guardrails and developing effective governance.

(3) On 13 September 2023, as part of a comprehensive approach to support responsible innovation in AI, the Commission announced a new strategic initiative to make the Union’s high performance computing capacity available to innovative European startupsstart-ups in trustworthy AI to train their models. That complements work on setting guardrails for AI through Regulation (EU) 2024/… , establishing governance structures, and supporting innovation through the Coordinated Plan on Artificial Intelligence.

(3a) In order to capitalise on its supercomputing infrastructure and to foster an innovative European AI ecosystem, including through the establishment of AI Factories across the Union, the communication of the Commission of 24 January 2024 on ‘Boosting start-ups and innovation in trustworthy artificial intelligence’ sets out a strategic investment framework to allow start-ups and industry in the Union to fulfil their potential of becoming global front-runners in trustworthy advanced AI models, systems and applications.

(4) Given that the Union’s most powerful world-class supercomputing capacity is found in the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking’s (the ‘Joint Undertaking’) facilities, it is those facilities that should be made available in order for the Commission’s initiative to become a reality. It is accordingly necessary to introduce a further objective to the existing six objectives of the Joint Undertaking that would cover the contribution made by its supercomputers to the new AI initiative of the Union, ensuring fairness, transparency, trustworthiness and a positive societal impact and responding to the needs and goals of the Union.

(5) The new objective would allow the Joint Undertaking to perform activities in the domains of upgrading or acquiring and operating AI-dedicated supercomputers or partitions of supercomputers to enable fast machine learning and training of trustworthy and ethical large AI foundation models thus strengthening the Union's competitiveness and industrial base in AI. The Joint Undertaking should also be allowed to create a new access mode to its computing resources in particular for AI startupsstart-ups and the wider scientific community active in AI and to develop dedicated AI applications models and systems optimised to run on its supercomputers while safeguarding open access, fairness and transparency. Those changes would enable the Joint Undertaking to offer tailored computing power and services to nurture large-scale AI training and development and uptake in the Union, which is not feasible under the current Regulation.

(5a) A one-stop shop should be established by the Joint Undertaking on the basis of the principles of open access, in a way that different types of users can fully leverage the potential of AI in supercomputing. The opportunities provided by AI Factories should be widely communicated to start-ups, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the innovation ecosystem and researchers engaged in Union programmes, highlighting the numerous benefits that AI can offer in supercomputing applications. Moreover, Union-level cooperation of AI Factories should make computing power available as a service across the Union, which is essential to the support services offered, further easing access to this critical infrastructure. This should also serve to develop demand-oriented EuroHPC supercomputers, ensuring that the infrastructure meets the evolving needs of users and sectors across the Union.

(5b) The resolution of the European Parliament of 14 December 2023 on increasing innovation, industrial and technological competitiveness through a favourable environment for start-ups and scale-ups stresses that scale-ups play a critical role in driving innovation, job creation, and economic growth in the Union and calls on the Commission and Member States to adopt a proper definition of scale-ups based on scalability, while taking into account how they differ from start-ups, scale-upsstart-ups and SMEs. The Joint Undertaking’s governing board should define conditions to access such AI-dedicated supercomputers and relevant support services for different categories users, such as start-ups, scale-ups, SMEs, higher education institutions and research centres, with the aim of overcoming cost constraints and a lack of resource expertise.

(5c) As the use of supercomputers for AI requires a higher usage of data, it is important that they are either located nearby or connected to an existing or planned data centre via high-speed networks. Furthermore, such data centres should fully comply with the requirements laid down in Article 12 of Directive (EU) 2023/1791 of the European Parliament and of the Council and should, in the future, be interconnected with the Common European Data Spaces to facilitate the training of models in key sectorial domains. Hosting entities should be able to effectively use financial support from the Common European Data Spaces to enhance their infrastructure, including to acquire or upgrade data centres. Synergies between the different initiatives should be promoted.

(5d) As the use of supercomputers for AI requires a significant increase in computational power, which in turn leads to a greater consumption of energy, the hosting entities should have plans regarding their energy efficiency and environmental sustainability. Those plans should ensure that the supercomputer has access to a secure and stable grid connection and electricity supply, preferably through clean affordable energy, including the use of power purchase agreements, which can also be based on renewable energy, and the use of electricity that is locally generated. Furthermore, AI models should comply with energy consumption requirements laid down in Regulation ...(EU) 2024/… [the Artificial Intelligence Act]. Reporting obligations for general-purpose AI models laid down in that Regulation are to be complied with.

(5e) AI Factories will provide comprehensive supercomputing support services to AI start-ups, small innovative companies, and the broader research and innovation ecosystem. Those services are crucial for facilitating access to supercomputers, offering dedicated programming facilities and algorithmic support for the development, testing, evaluation and validation of AI training models and systems. Furthermore, they assist in the creation of novel use cases and emerging applications across the Union strategic areas, including for robotics and manufacturing, new materials and batteries, aerospace, mobility, connected and automated driving, health and care, biotechnology, energy, climate change and adaptation, complex system dynamics, virtual worlds and digital twins, cybersecurity, aerospace, agricultural practices, research and innovation and the public sector.

(6) In order to align the application date of this Regulation with the application date of the provisions of Regulation (EU) 2024/… of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence, it should apply without undue delay.

(vii) through a transparent, equal opportunities and open process, attracting, pooling, ▌training and retaining talent, including students, developers, researchers, scientists and the user community to develop their competences, ▌skills and knowledge in using the EuroHPC supercomputers for Artificial Intelligence, as well as providing tailor-made coaching;

(viii) interacting with the other Artificial Intelligence Factories, making their services accessible across Europe, paying constant attention to geographical and gender balance, and cooperating with the EuroHPC Competence Centres and Centres of Excellence, and with relevant Artificial Intelligence initiatives of the Union, such as the hubs of Artificial Intelligence startups,start-ups, the Artificial Intelligence and data ecosystems, the Artificial Intelligence Testing and Experimentation Facilities, the European central Artificial Intelligence platform, the Artificial Intelligence-oriented Digital Innovation Hubs, the Artificial Intelligence- related European Instititute of Innovation and Technology Knowledge and Innovation Communities, the Artificial Intelligence-related Horizon Europe joint undertakings and partnerships relevant European research infrastructures and other related initiatives.

(viiia) maintaining and optimising supercomputers with artificial intelligence capabilities, ensuring their reliability and performance for advanced computational tasks.’;

The President

ANNEX: ENTITIES OR PERSONS FROM WHOM THE RAPPORTEUR HAS RECEIVED INPUT

The rapporteur declares under her exclusive responsibility that she did not receive input from any entity or person to be mentioned in this Annex pursuant to Article 8 of Annex I to the Rules of Procedure.

PROCEDURE – COMMITTEE RESPONSIBLE

Title

Amending Regulation (EU) 2021/1173 as regards an EuroHPC initiative for start-ups to boost European leadership in trustworthy Artificial Intelligence

References

COM(2024)0029 – C9-0013/2024 – 2024/0016(CNS)

Date Parliament was consulted

14.2.2024

Committee responsible

Date announced in plenary

ITRE

11.3.2024

Rapporteurs

Date appointed

Maria da Graça Carvalho

14.2.2024

Date adopted

20.3.2024

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

47

3

3

Members present for the final vote

François-Xavier Bellamy, Hildegard Bentele, Tom Berendsen, Paolo Borchia, Marc Botenga, Markus Buchheit, Cristian-Silviu Buşoi, Ignazio Corrao, Beatrice Covassi, Josianne Cutajar, Nicola Danti, Marie Dauchy, Christian Ehler, Lina Gálvez Muñoz, Jens Geier, Bart Groothuis, Christophe Grudler, Henrike Hahn, Robert Hajšel, Ivo Hristov, Ivars Ijabs, Romana Jerković, Michael Kauch, Seán Kelly, Zdzisław Krasnodębski, Thierry Mariani, Marisa Matias, Georg Mayer, Marina Mesure, Angelika Niebler, Niklas Nienaß, Ville Niinistö, Johan Nissinen, Mauri Pekkarinen, Mikuláš Peksa, Tsvetelina Penkova, Markus Pieper, Manuela Ripa, Robert Roos, Sara Skyttedal, Grzegorz Tobiszowski, Patrizia Toia, Henna Virkkunen, Carlos Zorrinho

Substitutes present for the final vote

Franc Bogovič, Francesca Donato, Alexis Georgoulis, Jordi Solé, Susana Solís Pérez

Substitutes under Rule 209(7) present for the final vote

Radan Kanev, Grace O’Sullivan, Emil Radev, Aušra Seibutytė

Date tabled

25.3.2024

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE RESPONSIBLE

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