as The European Commission has allocated €762.7 million in funding for digital transformation, AI, cybersecurity and more as part of its Digital Europe work program for 2024.
According to telecoms.com, the bulk of the funding, nearly 549 million euros, will go towards ongoing projects and projects under the Digital Decade goals, a roadmap aimed at accelerating digital transformation in member countries. It will be spent to enable continuity and evolution of multi-country projects. state by 2030).
The ongoing project, which originally started in March, includes the use of digital technologies such as supercomputers, data, AI, cloud, cybersecurity and advanced digital skills. In addition to strengthening AI efforts, the multilateral project includes additional actions related to key digital policies such as virtual worlds, cloud, and quantum.
“The Digital Europe program is key to pooling EU and national funding to achieve ambitious digital projects that no member state can implement alone,” said EU Vice-President Margrethe Vestager. Ta. “It is important that Europe continues to support the Digital Decade goals with a focus on digital skills, artificial intelligence excellence and cybersecurity.”
Under this funding, new initiatives aimed at supporting the enforcement of AI legislation, the EU’s approach to ensuring the development of AI including ethical foundations, and the development of a European AI ecosystem with a particular focus on small and medium-sized enterprises, will be implemented. Activities are also scheduled to begin.
Other policy areas that the EU considers important as part of this subsection of funding include “seed funding for pilots that demonstrate seamless integration and interoperability between industrial IoT edge and telco edge developments; The establishment of a heritage field 3D competence center and the delivery of quantum-based metabolic MRI sensors for cancer diagnosis and treatment.”
The remaining €214 million is earmarked for cybersecurity, with the aim of improving Member States’ collective resilience against cyber threats, including the enforcement of cyber resilience laws.
The European Cybersecurity Competence Center (ECCC) will be responsible for implementing the actions under this work program, and the National Coordination Center will be the point of contact between Member States, supporting stakeholders and contributing to the ECCC’s strategic mission.
However, warfare is increasingly moving to include cyberwar and cybercrime, which is estimated to cause trillions of dollars in losses worldwide each year, and which the EU is dedicating to combating cybercrime. €14 million ($234.6 million) seems pretty paltry. For comparison, the United States, which has a population 60% smaller than the EU, spends billions of dollars each year on combating cybercrime, with spending in 2023 exceeding her $111 billion.
Nevertheless, the EU seems satisfied with the budget allocation and plans to announce the first call for calls for the Digital Europe program early next year.