On 8 October, the European Commission launched two new strategies to accelerate the uptake of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in European industry and science, in line with the EU’s  AI Continent Action Plan: the Apply AI Strategy, with a budget of €1 billion, which focuses on businesses, and the AI in Science Strategy, centred on RAISE – the Resource for AI Science in Europe, a virtual European institute designed to bring together and coordinate resources for developing and applying AI in science.

The Apply AI Strategy aims to facilitate the uptake of AI, particularly among SMEs and small mid-caps, and to encourage its use in order to boost the competitiveness of European industries across several sectors including robotics; manufacturing, engineering and construction; mobility, transport and automotive; energy; and climate and the environment. To implement the strategy, the European Commission is mobilising around €1 billion from its funding programmes, including Horizon Europe (HEU), the Digital Europe Programme, EU4Health and Creative Europe, with the aim of further leveraging private funds.

When it comes to energy, the Commission intends for AI essentially to support improving energy efficiency, grid management, the integration renewable energy, and optimising energy storage. As such, the Strategy sets out to support the development of AI models that improve forecasting, optimisation, digital twins, and system balancing within the energy system. Furthermore, AI tools are expected to empower citizens and businesses in saving energy through better design and management, as well as saving money through improved and automated energy trading. In addition, the upcoming Strategic Roadmap on Digitalisation and AI for the Energy Sector should present further actions on the matter.

On the climate and environment front, the strategy points to AI’s long track record in environmental monitoring and forecasting, recalling its role in detecting fires, floods, droughts and heatwaves, in water management, and in supporting decision-making for resilience and preparedness. However, according to the publication, AI’s full potential remains untapped due to the complexity of AI-based climate and environmental modelling, persistent skills gaps, and a fragmented ecosystem of tools and datasets across the Union. To remedy this, the strategy’s main proposition is to deploy an open-source AI Earth system frontier model for improved weather forecasting and Earth monitoring.

Besides, to boost AI skills in sectors such as energy and the environment, the Commission plans to fund “AI for Business” degrees through the Digital Europe Programme, with potential support from Erasmus+. The strategy also outlines the creation of an “AI Entrepreneurs Lab”, building on initiatives such as the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and European Universities alliances, and bringing together AI graduates and companies to create new partnerships.

The complementary AI in Science Strategy aims to address the growing importance and transformative power of AI in academic research, in a context where China and the United States have now overtaken the EU in terms of the number of scientific publications using AI applications, and where they, alongside Japan and the UK, are investing heavily in computational power and datasets.

Primarily financed through Horizon Europe, and partly through the Digital Europe Programme, including under the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the strategy establishes RAISE, an online institute to be built using a phased approach and intended to provide access to essential AI resources, such as expertise, increased computational capacity, data and research funding. The new platform will promote both research on AI (or “science for AI”) and the use of AI for scientific progress (“AI in science”), and aims to build a dynamic research community through existing thematic networks of excellence in AI for science and a European Network of Frontier AI Labs, notably to identify strategic data gaps and curate necessary datasets.

The RAISE pilot will benefit from €108 million in funding under Horizon Europe’s 2026–2027 Work Programme (WP), and from a Coordination and Support Action (CSA) under Horizon Europe WP 2025. It will secure dedicated access to AI Gigafactories for EU scientists and start-ups, with investments from HEU of up to €600 million. In addition, the RAISE pilot should further incentivise and coordinate investments in AI in science through the development of an investment agenda in HEU’s 2026–2027 WP, ultimately seeking to double the programme’s current yearly investment in AI by 2028.

Amongst other concrete measures, the Strategy will set out to fund scientific laboratory automation, as well as announces the creation of a JRC Scientific AI Hub to monitor and evaluate AI models and systems for strategic scientific research, and plans to increase coordination with existing initiatives such as AI Factories and Data Labs within the Common European Data Spaces.