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President Ursula von der Leyen attended the AI Safety Summit in Bletchley Park. In her speech, she emphasised the key role of Artificial Intelligence and spoke about the contribution of supercomputing in this area.
He began by acknowledging the uncertainty of the timeframe for the realisation of ‘intelligent machines’. The urgency of this challenge is evident as we stand on the brink of an era in which intelligent machines will be able to make decisions.
To address the complex security challenges of AI, von der Leyen drew on history, in particular the development of nuclear weapons. This history demonstrated the importance of having an independent scientific community capable of assessing the risks of AI objectively. She stressed the need for these scientists to have access to resources and be free to identify the risks of AI.
She emphasised the importance of the European supercomputing ecosystem, which provides independent scientists with access to state-of-the-art resources and fosters AI innovation, and proposed a four-pillar framework to understand and mitigate AI risks. This includes support for an independent scientific community with access to Leonardo and LUMI supercomputers, globally recognised AI safety standards, incident reporting and follow-up, and an international alert system.
eed a thriving and independent scientific community, equipped with the means to evaluate AI systems.They need public funding and access to the best supercomputers. In the past 5 years, the EU has built the largest public network of supercomputers in the world. And we already give access to Lumi in Finland and Leonardo in Italy to start-ups and testers.
She emphasised the need for a culture of responsibility for both private actors and public authorities. Private actors must integrate accountability into their business models, while public authorities are responsible for the safety of citizens.
President von der Leyen presented the European AI Act, designed to support innovation, harness the benefits of AI and focus regulation on high risks. This law was in the final stages of the legislative process, with discussions on the establishment of a European AI Office. This office would oversee advanced AI models, collaborate with the scientific community and apply common rules to all 27 member states.
In conclusion, von der Leyen stressed the importance of starting down the path towards responsible AI development, emphasising the role of the European supercomputing ecosystem in fostering AI innovation and security.
President von der Leyen’s remarks are available on the European Commission website
