Making (digital) sense of the 2020 EU state of the union

Introduction

The state of the union address was held this morning by the EU president and contains the following important points for the digital domain.

• 20% of the recovery fund to digital.
• Industrial Data and common data rooms for industry.
• A common European digital ID to be proposed.
• An European cloud.
• Acceptance that AI exists and is important and exciting.
• Infrastructure i.e. 5G and broadband.
• Supercomputers
• European energy efficient microprocessor

There might be items that fell trough the cracks here in my review, specifically I do not cover the areas strictly related to the digital domain. The full transcribed text can be found here.

Allocation

And this is why we will invest 20% of NextGenerationEU on digital.

There should be little reason to be disappointment on the allocation. This is a sizeable amount and can make a real difference if actually used sensible for real digitization.

Industrial data and rooms

A real data economy, on the other hand, would be a powerful engine for innovation and new jobs. And this is why we need to secure this data for Europe and make it widely accessible. We need common data spaces - for example, in the energy or healthcare sectors. This will support innovation ecosystems in which universities, companies and researchers can access and collaborate on data.

It is a novel idea but in a world that is becoming very global especially in knowledge share and large cooperation I must admit I am not sure how the spill over effects will be.

Unless a tight ecosystem is built around such an initiative it will only serve as a knowledge and brain drain and it is going to be interesting to view how this is operationalised.

A common European digital ID

That is why the Commission will soon propose a secure European e-identity. 

One that we trust and that any citizen can use anywhere in Europe to do anything from paying your taxes to renting a bicycle. A technology where we can control ourselves what data and how data is used.

This is in my honest opinion the only initiative that is not about playing catch up with the rest of the world. This assumes that this is about more than identity and pivots onto digital validation.

This is really almost getting into this to late and it still may be to late depending on execution which normally is not moving fast in the EU. As I have pointed out the global platforms are moving into this space and they will set the standards unless this is executed in an uncharacteristic urgency and speed.

I have previously covered the platforms move into this space and summarized the feedback from the public eIDAS consultations which covers a lot of ground in this area.

An European cloud

And it is why we will build a European cloud as part of NextGenerationEU - based on GaiaX.

This is really, really trying to play catch up with the rest of the world. IMHO I am hard pressed to see this actually becoming a real life success.

AI

The second area we need to focus on is technology - and in particular artificial intelligence.

Whether it's precision farming in agriculture, more accurate medical diagnosis or safe autonomous driving - artificial intelligence will open up new worlds for us. But this world also needs rules.

We want a set of rules that puts people at the centre. Algorithms must not be a black box and there must be clear rules if something goes wrong. The Commission will propose a law to this effect next year.

This includes control over our personal data which still have far too rarely today. Every time an App or website asks us to create a new digital identity or to easily log on via a big platform, we have no idea what happens to our data in reality.

Again this is really, really playing catch up. The other major players have known and acted on this for at least 10 years and it is striking that what was needed was for the upper ones seeing demos based on that to realize the importance.

Most probably catch up and to little to late in my opinion to make a real difference.

5G and broadband

This is a huge opportunity and the prerequisite for revitalising rural areas. Only then can they fully exploit their potential and attract more people and investment.

The investment boost through NextGenerationEU is a unique chance to drive expansion to every village. This is why we want to focus our investments on secure connectivity, on the expansion of 5G, 6G and fiber.

As a democratic measure this is applaudable but in terms of making an economic difference I am more inclined to be skeptical.

Supercomputers

In this spirit, I am pleased to announce an investment of 8 billion euros in the next generation of supercomputers - cutting-edge technology made in Europe.

Playing catch up.

European energy efficient microprocessor

And we want the European industry to develop our own next-generation microprocessor that will allow us to use the increasing data volumes energy-efficient and securely.

This is almost funny. We have had several of those being treated as leppards and in best case being sold to foreign ventures. The most well known is ARM that these days are being passed along to US investors but there have been many other noteworthy the last 20 years.

I guess hindsight is better than no sight at all.

What is missing ?

It is the specifics and the execution. It is not hard to envision a lot of problems on these aspects including being make believe initiatives suitable for speeches and press conferences.

All of this initiatives are dependent on building a ecosystem and sustainable business models, if not they will fail.

Summary

Most of this initiatives are really catch up activities that is symptomatic of missing a train that left a long time ago. As such they are important not to fall even further behind the curve but they are still more stop loss initiatives rather than exploring the new frontiers or solving the problems of tomorrow.

There is one notable exception which is in the area of digital identity and verification. This is really coming at the edge of the curve and is marginally ahead of the curve at all.

The allocation is a sure indication of the acknowledgment of the importance of this area and seen in combination with the fact that most of these initiatives are down payments for earlier neglect that fact should raise some somber thought by most of us.

There are real questions that should be asked on the ability to execute in an efficient and secure manner on these initiatives. It is all to easy to envision all of this becoming mostly sunk cost with no substantial gain.

About the author

Ronny Khan is an IT and Business development specialist within the Norwegian financial sector, who is involved in standardization effort on remote natural person identification targeting trust level high as part of a shared effort by the Banking association with public sector stakeholders as well as member of the EU expert group on eid and KYC.

He is currently working full time seconded to the banking association as liaison with key players in the public sector to ensure deployment at scale of remote on boarding for electronic identities. 

He is also participating in ISO standardization, national standardization with focus on biometrics , security and identification in retail banking , a keen follower of the are of identity, identity proofing , KYC and always looking for new interesting domains. Currently he is focused on digital validation as a natural evolution of digital identities.

Previously he has been working within a broad field covering digital identities, internet bank authentication/authorization, card security and telecommunications.

More information on Ronnys homepage