Forum Europe’s International AI Summit took place in Brussels on the 5 December. Over 190 participants joined us in-person, in addition to over 320 participants joining us online, representing over 60 different countries. We were joined by 35 high-level speakers to discuss the pertinent topics facing AI, including how European and global AI governance cooperation is evolving, the shape of emerging governance structures, and whether adequate attention is being given to ensuring AI is democratised, accessible and equitable. Read on for a recap of the discussions, and view the best moments in our highlights video.

 

“This event has become a regular occurrence in Brussels. So I'm looking forward to an update on last year's discussions and seeing how a fast-moving space like AI, particularly in Europe, is looking at new issues, new topics, digesting some of the regulations that come from Brussels, but also increasing the international nature of this event and some of these discussions. So getting everybody in one place for a day like this and some of the recent hot topics, I think it's just a great way to collect stakeholders and see how things have changed over the past year and how we expect things to change over the next year.”

Jeremy Rollison, Head of EU Policy, European Government Affairs, Microsoft Europe. 

The conference began with a keynote speech from Ulrik Vestergaard Knudsen, Deputy Secretary-General, OECD.

 

"I've been Deputy Secretary-General at the OECD for six years. And I'm almost venturing into saying that the formation of this new GPI is perhaps the milestone event in governance of AI during those six years, at least for me."

Ulrik Vestergaard Knudsen, Deputy Secretary-General, OECD.

 

The UN’s role in global AI governance, how GPI is integrated into OECD, and the G7’s ongoing work, were explored, as well as the OECD’s role in monitoring principles, their ongoing efforts in AI governance, and their contributions to the EU AI Act and US standards. 

 

This was then followed by a Fireside Chat between Jeff Campbell, SVP and Chief Government Strategy Officer at Cisco, and Kait Bolongaro, Managing Editor for Europe at MLex, exploring AI for cybersecurity and cybersecurity for AI. They looked at how AI can be integrated into networking infrastructure and cybersecurity tools, the importance of secure design of software and hardware, as well as the need for a robust security framework when deploying AI. 

 

"In the old days, if you got a situation where one person opened the door and gave their credentials and whatnot, you allowed people to have access to the network, potentially for long periods of time and in incredibly destructive ways. But because we can trace the traffic flows and stuff like that, we can shut those down automatically before they get too far. So AI is part of the problem, but AI is definitely the solution."

Jeff Campbell, SVP and Chief Government Strategy Officer at Cisco

 

The first panel discussion of the conference saw Oliver Ilott, Director, UK AI Safety Institute, Elizabeth Kelly, Director, U.S. AI Safety Institute, and Juha Heikkilä, Adviser for International Aspects of Artificial Intelligence, DG CONNECT, European Commission, join experts from ISED Canada, Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute and Accenture to discuss mitigating AI risks through safety and fairness measures. They reflected on how we can address the safety and security challenges of complex AI systems, and the role of various stakeholders in ensuring AI safety. The OECD’s role in prototyping incident reporting was mentioned, along with the acknowledgement of the public skepticism and fear of AI, and the need of the AI community to explain and share the benefits. 

Next, the second panel focused on equitable access and opportunity: 'AI for Inclusive Growth', and the role of governance and international cooperation in shaping a prosperous and equitable AI future. Yi-Jing Lin, Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs, Taiwan, Signe Ratso, Deputy Director-General for Innovation, Prosperity and International Cooperation, DG RTD, European Commission, and Bitange Ndemo, Kenya’s Ambassador to Belgium and Mission to the European Union, were joined by experts from Qualcomm and MLex. Yi-Jing Ling highlighted AI’s rapid growth and potential dangers, and Signe Ratso looked in further depth at AI’s transformative nature and the EU’s comprehensive legal framework aimed at safe, transparent, ethical AI systems. The panel explored the benefits of AI, and the importance of global cooperation. 

 

"The development of AI is unstoppable, and each one of us is here to witness this historic moment. In this process, it is crucial for all of us to collectively consider and address how to establish sound policies and prevent the misuse of technology” 

林宜敬 Yi-Jing Lin, Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs, Taiwan

 

We were then joined by Amandeep Singh Gill, Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology/ Under Secretary General, United Nations, for a Fireside Chat on Exploring the UN’s AI Agenda under the Global Digital Compact. 

 

"I think our broader impulse here [for OECD-UN partnership] is the need for networked multi-stakeholder international cooperation. So the AI value chain is complex, many, many players, and there is no need to centralise anything in terms of international cooperation... I think the OECD UN partnerships is a critical element in that networked multilateralism with multi-stakeholder dimensions. OECD has expertise in terms of policy assessments, some of the risk monitoring. It has developed the principles first in this space and then taken it to the place since everybody relied on the OECD, the revised OECD definition. And in the UN, we have these mechanisms that are emerging and ongoing work: UNESCO's work on AI ethics, the ITU's work on AI applications for sustainable development on standards, where again, there's a beautiful example of how this consultation happens."

Amandeep Singh Gill, Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology/ Under Secretary General, United Nations

 

Cameron F. Kerry, Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Center for Technology Innovation, and Joshua Meltzer, Senior Fellow, Global Economy and Development Program, both at the Brookings Institution, then led a discussion on the geopolitical influences on AI development. 

 

After lunch, 'Driving Innovation: How AI, Robotics and Automation Enhance Operations and Empower Employees' was the topic of focus for the Fireside Chat with Stefano Perego, VP International Operations & Global Ops Services at Amazon. 

 

“I see this concept of diffusing AI throughout Europe as a very important concept. The very fact that this innovation lab I mentioned is in Italy and is producing gen AI and robotics innovation for the entire world. It's leveraging Italian companies, German companies, I mean it's leveraging the know-how of Europe. But Europe needs to boost and multiply this type of diffusion of AI and we need to up-skill people because up-skilling is critical in this space.”

Stefano Perego, VP International Operations & Global Ops Services at Amazon. 

 

The third panel of the conference explored how we can deliver on the promise of AI: how we can build the market, tools and solutions to drive growth and prosperity. Oleksandr Tsybort, Deputy Minister for Digital Transformation, Ministry of Economy, Ukraine, and Yoichi Iida, Assistant Vice Minister, MIC, Japan & Chair of Hiroshima Process WG, were joined by representatives from Intuit, Salesforce, and Brookings Institution.

 

For the penultimate session of the conference, Elham Tabassi, Associate Director for Emerging Technologies, Information Technology Laboratory, NIST, and Bilel Jamoussi, Deputy to the Director and Chief of the Study Groups Department, Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, joined experts from CEN-CENELEC, Amazon, The AI, Data and Robotics Association, and Brookings Institution. They discussed the progress made through international efforts to create and implement AI standards, focusing on how these standards can facilitate governance, promote innovation and protect individual rights. 

 

The final panel took a deeper look at the EU AI Act and global alignment on AI regulatory efforts. The panel explored the implications of the AI Act for the AI landscape in Europe and globally, as well as the role that the European AI Office and the AI Board plays in ensuring the success of the AI Act and supporting the European AI ecosystem. Dariusz Standerski, Secretary of State, Ministry of Digital Affairs, Poland, and Kilian Gross, Head of Unit, Regulation and Compliance, Artificial Intelligence Office, DG CONNECT, European Commission, joined experts from Microsoft, Atlassian, CEPS, OECD and MLex. 

 

“In Poland, as an office enforcing the AI Act, we decided to establish the AI Development and Safety Commission. The office will consist of the representative of the Digital Affairs Minister, Minister of Culture, Minister of Finance, Minister of Defence, as well as our Data Protection Officer and our Telecommunications Office. They will meet on a daily basis and they will decide on our high risk initiatives, on our standards and on every piece of daily implementation of the AI Act after it's enforced. And we want to achieve two goals at the same time, to have a new elastic office, because AI is developing much faster than our civil courts or our normal offices, based on the 20th century administrative rules."

Dariusz Standerski, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Digital Affairs, Poland

Thank you to all speakers and delegates who participated in the event, and particularly to our event sponsors and partners. Relive the event by viewing the highlights video.

Highlights | The International AI Summit 2024

 

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"International exchanges like Forum Europe’s International AI Summit promote multistakeholder and multilateral dialogue, which is critical to shaping human-centric, safe, secure and trustworthy AI."

Ulrik Vestergaard Knudsen, Deputy Secretary-General, OECD