A coalition of Europe\u2019s biggest enterprises, including Airbus SE, Mercedes-Benz AG and BNP Paribas Group is asking the European Union to freeze the implementation of a new artificial intelligence law, saying it could prevent the bloc from keeping up with the pace of development in China and the United States.<\/p>\n
The chief executive officers of 44 companies, which include Europe\u2019s top AI developer Mistral AI, have asked European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to delay the AI Act for two years. They say its unclear, overlapping rules will discourage European investment in AI and slow down innovation, the Financial Times reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n In an open letter to EU officials<\/a>, the company heads argue that the act will put Europe\u2019s AI ambitions at risk, because it \u201cjeopardizes\u201d the development of European champions and hampers their ability to deploy the technology at the scale needed to compete globally.<\/p>\n Among the business leaders who added their signatures to the letter are the CEOs of the French retailer Carrefour Group S.A., the Dutch electronics firm Koninklijke Philips N.V. and chipmaking equipment manufacturer ASML Holdings N.V.<\/p>\n The companies have strong support in their efforts to pause the rollout of the legislation, with the U.S. government, big technology firms and European business groups all putting pressure on the EU in recent weeks. On Wednesday, Brussels hosted representatives from a number of U.S. tech companies that came to participate in the creation of a revised, software version of the AI Act.<\/p>\n Those discussions focused on a \u201ccode of practice\u201d within the Act that\u2019s designed to help guide companies on compliance when deploying large language models such as OpenAI\u2019s GPT-4 and Meta Platforms Inc.\u2019s Llama. The code was originally set to be published in May, but has since been delayed and is expected to be watered-down.<\/p>\n On Monday, the EU\u2019s technology commissioner Henna Virkkunen promised that the guidance would be published before the AI Act formally comes into effect, in August. \u201cWe will publish the code of practice before that to support our industry and SMEs to comply with our AI Act,\u201d she stated.<\/p>\n It\u2019s thought that EU Commission officials and member states have been holding intense negotiations behind closed doors in order to try and temper some of the new guidelines and simplify the Act\u2019s staggered rollout timeline.<\/p>\n While the AI Act officially came into law in August 2024<\/a>, a number of the most important measures within it will only take effect later this year, or beyond<\/a>. That has resulted in a lot of confusion among European businesses, the Financial Times reported.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a classic example of regulation that doesn\u2019t take into account the most important thing for industry, which is certainty,\u201d said Cooley LLP co-chair Patrick Van Eecke.<\/p>\n The letter was sponsored by an initiative called the European AI Champions<\/a>, which is a coalition of 110 companies spread across multiple industries. The group is calling for a two-year pause on the AI Act\u2019s rollout, arguing that to do so would \u201csend a strong signal that Europe is serious about its simplification and competitiveness agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n They\u2019re joined by the founders of and investors in numerous European startups that have voiced similar concerns over the AI Act. Earlier this week, the heads of more than 30 startups signed a letter that said the legislation is a \u201crushed ticking time bomb\u201d, adding that they believe its unclear rules on the use of general-purpose models could result in a patchwork of national regulations. They fear this would give better-funded U.S. companies a significant competitive advantage, and damage Europe\u2019s own nascent AI industry.<\/p>\n Many European business chiefs fear that using LLMs could leave them at the mercy of the same regulations that govern the biggest technology firms, and are especially worried about being held liable for copyright infringements. The lack of clarity on how EU member states will apply the new rules may deter the adoption of AI tools, the CEOs say, putting them at a disadvantage against their competitors in Asia and the U.S.<\/p>\n For its part, the EU Commission insists that it\u2019s \u201cfully committed to the main goals of the AI Act\u201d, which calls for the establishment of harmonized, risk-based rules across the EU.<\/p>\n Image: SiliconANGLE\/Dreamina<\/p>\n Support our open free content by sharing and engaging with our content and community.<\/p>\n Join theCUBE\u00a0Alumni Trust Network<\/p>\n Where Technology Leaders Connect, Share Intelligence & Create Opportunities<\/p>\n 11.4k+\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n CUBE Alumni Network<\/p>\n C-level and Technical<\/p>\n Domain Experts<\/p>\n Connect with 11,413+ industry leaders from our network of tech and business leaders forming a unique trusted network effect.<\/p>\n SiliconANGLE Media is a recognized leader in digital media innovation serving innovative audiences and brands, bringing together cutting-edge technology, influential content, strategic insights and real-time audience engagement. As the parent company of SiliconANGLE<\/a>, theCUBE Network<\/a>, theCUBE Research<\/a>, CUBE365<\/a>, theCUBE AI<\/a> and theCUBE SuperStudios \u2014 such as those established in Silicon Valley and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) \u2014 SiliconANGLE Media operates at the intersection of media, technology, and AI. . <\/p>\n Founded by tech visionaries John Furrier and Dave Vellante, SiliconANGLE Media has built a powerful ecosystem of industry-leading digital media brands, with a reach of 15+ million elite tech professionals. The company\u2019s new, proprietary theCUBE AI Video cloud is breaking ground in audience interaction, leveraging theCUBEai.com neural network to help technology companies make data-driven decisions and stay at the forefront of industry conversations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A coalition of Europe\u2019s biggest enterprises, including Airbus SE, Mercedes-Benz AG and BNP Paribas Group is asking the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,92204,5187,24689,10209],"class_list":{"0":"post-236025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-europes-biggest-companies-call-for-two-year-pause-on-eus-landmark-ai-act","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-mike-wheatley","13":"tag-siliconangle"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114792054628172918","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}