Technopolis Group, together with Wavestone, Timelex, STL Partners, OpenForum Europe and Kapa Research, has been commissioned to provide research and empirical evidence to evaluate the current and future Cloud and AI landscape on behalf of the European Commission (DG CNECT).
The study seeks to:
- Quantify existing and future capacities, needs and gaps for general-purpose cloud and for AI-optimised cloud computing capacity. This includes the identification of current and expected future energy and water resource demands as well as the impact on direct and indirect job creation.
- Address key knowledge gaps concerning the challenges and opportunities for cloud development across EU Member States, including, among others:
- Barriers that hinder cross-border provisions
- Practices in terms of permitting of the buildout of data centres
- Barriers arising from energy grid capacity and resource issues
- Lock-in practices along the AI compute stack
- Public and private-sector initiatives helping to facilitate access to finance for data centres expansion
- Public sector initiatives to enact the principle of “public money, public code”
- Explore and develop policy recommendations, by considering their impact, costs and benefits, thereby contributing to the design of policy options.