MEP Yon Courtin is delighted to invite you to an event-discussion aiming at exploring what can be done at the EU level to address concerns of Big Tech's monopoly in the sector of artificial intelligence and the concentration in the market. What more can and should the EU do in order to better support the competitiveness of our companies and start-ups in AI?
With the recent agreement on the Artificial Intelligence Act, the EU has become the first continent to regulate and ensure an ethic AI with sufficient safeguards and prevent its abuse. However, little attention has been paid to the monopoly threat with a clear trend towards concentration in the market. Antitrust enforcers around the world are watching the industry in order to avoid reinforcing dominance of Big Tech. The UK's Competition and Market Authority has recently published a study on the AI foundation models, echoing similar concerns regarding the concentration expressed by the US Federal Trade Commission. At the same time, competition authorities in France, the Netherlands and the UK are investigating monopolistic conduct in the markets for the advanced chips and cloud infrastructure that power advanced AI. In its latest annual competition report, the European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has suggested expanding the scope of the Digital Markets Act to AI sectors to address these concerns.
There is a clear need to avoid a risk that existing incumbents would use control over key tools such as cloud infrastructure or data to undermine innovation and competition. Strategic investments and partnerships between Big Tech and innovative AI start-ups also raise concerns regarding the risk of reinforcing the dominance of GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft) as well as having only a handful of companies controlling AI. The event aims at exploring how can we address these concerns and how can we support innovation and boost competitiveness of the EU in the AI sector.
PROGRAM:
• 16:30-16:35 : Opening remarks by Stéphanie Yon-Courtin & Karen Melchior
• 16:35-17:15 : Keynote speech by EVP Margrethe Vestager followed by Q&A
• 17:20-18:30 : Panel moderated by Javier Espinoza, EU correspondent FT
o Benoit Coeuré, President of French Competition Authority
o Tobias Haar, General Counsel, Aleph Alpha
o Nathalie Laneret, Vice-President Government Affairs and Public Policy, Criteo
o Barry Lynn, Executive Director at the Open Markets Institute
o Carel Maske, Director of Competition, Microsoft
o Andreas Mundt, President of German Competition Authority
o Stéphanie Yon-Courtin, Member of the European Parliament
• 18:30-19:00 : Q&A session
• 19:00-20:00 : Concluding remarks and cocktail
EN-FR interpretation will be available to participants
