The European Union celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome with new digital agreements that put in the spotlight the digital future of a Europe 4.0. In the context of the Digital Day 2017, held in Rome last March 23rd, representatives of governments, industry and university traced a roadmap to strengthen cooperation between the EU member States to better prepare European citizens and industries to reap the full benefits of digital transformation.
Seven Countries (Italy, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain) signed a statement on supercomputing, committed to create a next generation IT infrastructure and data processing for high performance computing (EuroHPC), available for all scientific communities, industries and public administrations in the entire Europe. A letter of intent has been signed by 29 member States aimed to intensify a development strategy for cooperative mobility, connected and automated, with cross-border projects and trials with connected vehicles and the support of crucial digital technologies and policies such as 5G, artificial intelligence, big data, down to zero roaming costs, standardization, IoT and communications network coverage.
The European Commission also launched a European platform that links and combines 12 existing national initiatives on Industry 4.0, to help European industry on the path to digitization and innovation. It seeks to generate public investment, promote cooperation and synergies between different countries and industrial sectors, sharing and spreading best practices contributing to the pooling of resources. Over the next five years Member States, the EU and industry are expected to provide total investments of over 50 billion euro to support the digitization of European industry.
Also, the EU wants to explore concrete options offered by disruptive digital technologies for young graduates, working on the creation of new skills and employment opportunities. Commission plans to launch a pilot project to provide cross-border digital work experiences to a maximum of 6.000 graduates in the period 2018-2020, with paid training internships of 5-6 months focused in specialized fields such as cybersecurity, big data, quantum technology and artificial intelligence, and in more general areas such as web design, digital marketing and software development.