Draghi: Europe focuses on data for artificial intelligence and growth

MILAN – Europe cannot do without artificial intelligence if it does not want to give up growth. And it can do so without giving up its sovereignty and therefore without depending solely on the American technological giants. In a long letter published in the Financial Times, Mario Draghi tries to detail his recipe, putting at the center one of the assets around which the continent could structure its strategy: data.

“Being cut off from AI, once the economy is based on it, would be like being cut off from the US financial system. The effects would be catastrophic,” Draghi writes. “According to the ECB's scenarios, rapid adoption of AI would add 0.3 to 0.4 percentage points per year to growth in total factor productivity – that is, gains from greater labor efficiency rather than increases in labor or capital – which has remained virtually zero as of 2022. AI-driven growth, however, creates a tension with Europe's sovereignty aspirations, as the latter controls only a small part of the AI ​​value chain.”

The centrality of data

Hence the indication of the former ECB president: "Data represents the only area in which Europe can still exercise its sovereignty, and it is also the one with the greatest growth potential". “The continent – he explains – possesses a huge amount of public sector data, such as decades of medical records and data collected by statistics offices. Its highly automated manufacturing sector generates a vast wealth of machine-readable industrial information. The European Commission estimates that Europe's data economy will exceed €800 billion, or more than 5% of GDP, by 2030. But this creates an additional tension. To fully exploit these resources, Europe needs to control their storage and their processing. This means it requires data centers for large-scale artificial intelligence."

Draghi acknowledges that "data centers, however, are the subject of strong controversy. Local communities are concerned about environmental costs and rising energy bills. To make matters worse, much of the infrastructure currently under construction in Europe is destined for American tech giants."

The development of consortia