Original article here.

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The European Commission’s AI Continent Action Plan, released on April 9th, sets another milestone in the EU’s long march towards digital sovereignty. The Plan acknowledges the key role of data in ‘unlocking the full potential of AI’ and introduces a new Data Union Strategy to address the current ‘scarcity of robust and high-quality data’ needed for training and validating AI models (Action Plan, p. 11).

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The EU has never been shy when it comes to launching data-related initiatives: the 2020 European Data Strategy, the Common European Data Spaces (CEDS), or Gaia-X are the most notable examples. Yet, the implementation of these programs and initiatives has faced significant challenges that are far from being solved. At this juncture, the announcement of the new Data Union Strategy begs the question: will it overcome the shortcomings of its predecessors, or will it struggle with the same difficulties?

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Read this piece and recommended way forward by our Senior Research Lead, Marta Poblet, published by the Data & Policy blog.

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