With the publication of the Apply AI Strategy, the European Union sets out one of its most ambitious industrial policy bets of the past decade: making artificial intelligence (AI) a true factor of production across all strategic sectors, from energy and healthcare to telecommunications.
The strategy is based on three pillars: boosting AI use in key sectors; tackling cross-cutting obstacles that hold back adoption; and establishing a single governance framework to coordinate AI deployment across the Union. With this, Europe must cease the opportunity and become a producer of sovereign, secure and globally scalable AI.
From regulation to investment: a digital industrial policy
This shift confirms a trend already apparent at the Paris AI Summit: Europe must combine values with industrial strength, not choose between them. The Apply AI Strategy is the first industrial policy to place AI at the centre of economic transformation, alongside the Industrial Accelerator Act and the Scaleup Europe Fund, which seek to channel public and private investment into critical technologies.
The Commission will mobilise over €1 billion initially, with a strong multiplier effect. This represents a move from scattered subsidies to industrial alliances in which companies, universities and research centres co-develop solutions around a common infrastructure for data, compute and talent.
Europe is making it clear that investing in AI means investing in competitiveness, jobs and strategic autonomy.
The case for electronic communications
Among the sectors selected by the Commission, electronic communications is perhaps the most emblematic. As we all know by now, AI is set to transform how telecoms networks are designed, managed and optimised.
According to the document, 65% of operators worldwide are already experimenting with AI to automate operations and improve customer experience. Yet Europe has not fully captured this potential.
To reverse this, the Commission proposes two key measures:
- To strengthen European capabilities in edge AI devices, leveraging the Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking and the Chips Joint Undertaking.
- To create a European Telco AI Platform — a collaborative environment for operators, vendors and user sectors to co-develop a European AI stack, from data engineering to cloud-based AI services, preferably open-source.
In a world where digital infrastructures are increasingly strategic, the convergence of telecoms and AI becomes the foundation of Europe’s new economy and the competitiveness of its firms.
The value of data and intelligence at edge
The strategy also aligns with the data sovereignty agenda. The Data Union Strategy and the push for European AI Factories and Gigafactories aim to give the continent the capacity to train, deploy and operate advanced AI models on European data under principles of trust, security and sustainability.
In electronic communications, this means smarter, more efficient and more sustainable networks capable of managing traffic in real time and anticipating energy demand.
Deploying AI at the edge — on devices and network nodes closest to users — will cut latency, optimise resources and deliver more personalised and secure services. It also redraws the digital map of power: where data are processed will determine who captures economic value and derived intelligence.
Europe’s bet on an indigenous edge computing ecosystem is, in effect, a bet on retaining control over its cognitive infrastructure.
The new frontier: AI as a factor of production
The Commission is clear; AI becomes a factor of production on a par with energy, capital and labour. Foundation models and autonomous agents are already the productivity engine of the next decade.
The Frontier AI Initiative aims to enable Europe to develop advanced, open and secure AI models, with priority access for scientists and SMEs. In parallel, initiatives such as the AI Skills Academy will provide AI training at all levels, because there is no technological autonomy without human autonomy.
A competitiveness project with a European identity
The Apply AI Strategy consolidates a vision of a continent that seeks to lead on its own terms, not through imitation — one that understands trust as a competitive advantage and regulation, when paired with investment and innovation, as a tool of leadership.
Europe cannot compete by playing to others’ rules, but it can compete with its own model of inclusive, safe and sustainable technological development. Still, the proposal has been met in Brussels with some scepticism: while the Commission appears to have big ideas, there are concerns about limited real-world impact. It remains to be seen how Europe’s public and private sectors will adopt the unprecedented “AI-first” policy in practice.
Another open question is what relationship will be between the Apply AI Strategy and other legislative initiatives on AI, such as the AI Act, the review of the Copyright Directive, or the forthcoming Data Strategy, which should provide a data ecosystem ready for AI.
The Apply AI Strategy does not include legislative proposals, but it sets multiple objectives and fora for progress towards the strategy’s initial goal. In other words, it builds on the idea of the AI Continent — not a metaphor but a political project to build a European intelligence capable of amplifying our industries, languages and diversity.
The Apply AI Strategy is not only a digital strategy; it is expected to be the first chapter of a new European industrial policy that recognises the economy of the future will, above all, be driven by AI.
