Lagarde: “Artificial intelligence helps growth and competitiveness, EU must act accordingly”

Brussels – Artificial intelligence is growing, and with it, investment. Not in Europe, however, where it is losing the game of the future to the United States and China. Trends and scenarios that worry the President of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde: “Artificial intelligence can increase not only the level of productivity, but potentially the growth rate itself,” she warns, speaking to the audience of the BratislavAI Forum on artificial intelligence. 

Lagarde recalls the epochal transformations produced by scientific and technological progress. She cites the advent of electricity and the spread of computers. Compared to these historical precedents, “there are reasons to believe that artificial intelligence could spread faster and provide tangible economic gains sooner, compared to previous waves of technology,” she points out. Well, “if this is the path we are on, and I believe it can be, Europe needs to position itself accordingly.” 

The numbers speak for themselves: last year alone, global corporate investment in artificial intelligence reached $252 billion. In this race, the European Union is currently lagging, and to put the EU and its eurozone in a more competitive position, “we must remove all obstacles that prevent us from embracing this transformation,” the ECB president emphasises. 

It means completing those long-overdue reforms, first and foremost the capital market completion, as part of the broader programme to strengthen the single market, as emphasised first by the Letta report and then by the Draghi report. Lagarde only reminds us once more: “If we allow our energy costs to remain high, if regulations remain fragmented, and if capital markets fail to integrate and channel long-term, risk-bearing financing on a large scale, artificial intelligence will spread more slowly.” 

From a practical point of view, then, here is the ECB’s suggestion: “Our goal,” Lagarde explains, “should not be to overtake the most widespread artificial intelligence models, but rather to deploy artificial intelligence in a generalised manner.” How? “By focusing on the rapid adoption and intelligent use of existing artificial intelligence technologies in our most diverse sectors.” This is how, according to the Eurotower’s number one, “Europe can turn a late start into a competitive advantage.” Provided it takes action and changes course.