Most may at the time of writing associate EU with Brexit since the United Kingdom is pulling out of the union. The European Union and their member countries does together have a population of approximately 500 million and about $22.0 trillion GDP which places EU as the 2nd largest economic force in the world. Therefore by some measures it is an important area to keep track of, and the international strategy for EU relating to AI may be of interest. By summarising some of these policies in a pragmatic way I hope you as a reader understand that this is no substitute for reading the documents, rather an attempt to bring together a few key points. What I provide is of course not a complete picture, rather small excerpts from an ongoing discussion. Looking at the EU strategy it can be hard to understand where to start.

It hopes to see pledges of at least 20 billion euros per year, through public and private cash. "We should create a climate in which start-ups can be set-up easily and are not directly overrun by big companies," said Francis Wyffels, Robotics and AI Professor, Ghent University. A focus of the recent'Hack Belgium' event in Brussels, AI has some catching up to do in Europe - compared to the likes of America and Asia. The EU hopes to stand out by driving ethics standards, a hot topic in the wake of all the data scandals of late. Belgium wants to see excellence centres, to step up the pace of technology.