Europe is standing at a crossroads for its AI future. Big plans are in motion to embrace the power of Artificial Intelligence, with the EU AI Continent Action Plan and the upcoming Cloud and AI Development Act. But to truly make AI work for everyone, the roadmap must become clear deliverable steps.

This blog looks at what it takes to build a truly AI-ready continent through five crucial steps Europe must take to lead in AI, fostering innovation, ensuring security, and empowering its workforce. Our insights are drawn from our leadership in AI infrastructure, networking, security, and collaboration solutions and our commitment to international AI principles:

1. Build Robust AI Foundations: secure, scalable, energy efficient.
2. Make AI Secure: cybersecurity, risk management, global standards.
3. Protect Innovation: safe AI development, global standards, AI models weaknesses evaluation.
4. Keep Data Flowing: flexible data rules for AI training, reduced localization mandates.
5. Empower People with AI Skills: large-scale training, partnerships, modernized public procurement.

1. Build Robust AI Foundations

AI thrives on robust digital, physical, and energy infrastructure. Europe’s desire to triple its data centers capacity in the next 5 to 7 years is a vital step, alongside advancing AI Factories and AI Gigafactories. This infrastructure must be secure, reliable, and energy efficient.

Our research shows only 7% of European organizations consider themselves AI-ready, citing infrastructure limitations, security concerns, and skills gaps as primary barriers. Yet, maximizing AI’s value across the economy demands trusted infrastructure and robust security.

Similarly, only 8% of EU businesses feel their infrastructure is ready for AI, compared to 15% globally, and 66% acknowledge limited scalability. That’s a big gap. To address this, the EU must encourage strategic investments in new and modernized data centers, prioritizing security, resilience, and energy efficiency.

AI needs connectivity. Incentivizing broadband investments, implementing the Gigabit Infrastructure Act swiftly, and streamlining regulatory requirements will expedite data center construction and high-speed broadband deployment across Europe. The EU should also mandate  replacement or mitigation of obsolete network assets to enhance security and performance.

Further, Europe urgently needs to strengthen its infrastructure through flexible funding mechanisms that support both sovereign and global public cloud services. To get access to the world’s best technology, a mix of global and local solutions will give Europe the flexibility it needs. European success on AI hinges on its ability to access the best technologies.

Finally, we need to accelerate energy acquisition while enhancing the efficiency of technology infrastructures supporting AI. This includes promoting grid modernization, ensuring security in underlying control networks (including by addressing the fragmented national NIS2 implementation), and encouraging energy-efficient ICT equipment through schemes like the Sustainability Rating Scheme for Data Centers, with fiscal incentives.

2. Make AI Secure, From Top to Bottom

Recent developments have proven that even the most sophisticated AI models can be tricked or misused. Attackers are increasingly targeting AI infrastructure and the unique vulnerabilities within AI deployment environments, from supply chain compromises to prompt injection and data poisoning.

We need to protect the tech that runs AI, and the AI systems themselves, from how they’re built to how they’re used. As AI becomes more pervasive, it also broadens the threat surface which can be exploited.

The EU should integrate strong cybersecurity policies into AI investment projects, requiring robust risk management. Upholding internationally recognized standards like the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, OWASP Top 10, and MITRE ATLAS is key to strengthening AI security.

AI can also be our strongest defense. AI-enabled cybersecurity solutions can analyze vast amounts of data, detect anomalies, and automate responses at machine speed. The EU should promote these cybersecurity tools, ensuring they are not considered high-risk under the AI Act, thereby fostering innovation in this critical area.

Leveraging generative AI (GenAI) to enhance cybersecurity and expand the cyber workforce is another significant step as these tools democratize access to advanced security, simplifying complex tasks and helping address the shortage of cybersecurity professionals.

Lastly, promoting regulatory alignment and mutual recognition of security certifications and conformity assessment will streamline compliance and accelerate the deployment of vital AI-powered security solutions.

3. Protect Innovation to Spark New Ideas

New AI ideas won’t flourish without trust and safety. The rapid development and deployment of open-source models, while accelerating AI adoption, also introduce potential risks, including data leakage, data poisoning, and insecure outputs. The example of the DeepSeek R1 model, which showed 100% success in jailbreaking attempts in Cisco’s research, underscores that even high-performing models can have significant security flaws.

It is crucial to collaborate with the private sector on pre- and post-deployment testing of AI models, encouraging automated red teaming and continuous validation. Europe should back technology solutions that automatically test AI for weaknesses, and cooperate with international counterparts to support the uptake of globally recognized standards and practices in AI cybersecurity and risk management. Promoting instruments like the NIST Adversarial Machine Learning (AML) taxonomy will help identify and mitigate AI-associated risks.

Tasking ENISA to evaluate weaknesses in publicly available AI models, publish findings, and promote market-based solutions will strengthen the AI supply chain. These efforts require strong cooperation between government agencies and private sector, as technology develops rapidly and information sharing will become as important as technical requirements.

4. Keep Data Flowing and Standards Clear

AI learns from data. To unleash Europe’s AI potential, especially in areas like healthcare, data rules need to be flexible enough for AI training, while protecting privacy. Ensuring that European data rules are adapted to the AI revolution (e.g. AI training) will be key.

Data localization mandates often slow down innovation, cost more, and may even create new security risks. With that in mind, the EU should strengthen its international data flow policy by pursuing multilateral agreements for data transfers. These agreements should establish mutual recognition of countries with robust data protection frameworks, in contrast with existing rules that have failed to provide long term legal certainty, hindering business and innovation.

And when it comes to how AI works, we should focus on internationally recognized standards. This means everyone speaks the same tech language, making it easier for businesses to innovate and for AI to work seamlessly across borders. This approach simplifies compliance for businesses and strengthens Europe’s position as a global leader.

5. Empower People with AI Skills

AI is fundamentally reshaping industries and labour markets, so we need to make sure everyone has the skills to thrive. Our research shows only 9% of EU businesses feel they have the right talent for AI, a stark contrast to 21% in the US.

We need to invest in training programs that teach AI skills. Partnerships between governments and companies are vital. The EU must also encourage and enshrine skills-based hiring practices in both the private and public sectors. Cisco is doing its part, aiming to train 1.5 million Europeans in digital skills by 2030, and training 5,000 instructors in AI and data science.

It’s not just about AI professionals – 92% of ICT jobs will be significantly or moderately transformed by GenAI.  Which is why Cisco, together with eight leading global companies and advisers established the AI-enabled ICT Workforce Consortium, analyzing how job profiles will be impacted by AI, sharing insights and detailed training offerings to help individuals reskill and upskill.

Finally, promoting digital transformation in the public sector will not only improve service delivery and security but also foster AI adoption and help break down data silos. Crucially, the EU should modernize public procurement processes to align with emerging technological solutions, and refrain from introducing broad European preference clauses as these often limit choice, hinder innovation, and rarely deliver the expected long-term local growth.

Can Europe become an AI Continent?

Europe has the opportunity to build an AI future that’s smart, but also secure, fair, and inclusive. It means thinking big, investing wisely, and fostering collaboration between policymakers, industry, and academia. By focusing on strong foundations, robust security, innovation, open data flows, and a skilled workforce, Europe can truly become an AI Continent.

Cisco is the global leader in networking, security, and collaboration solutions. We are committed to supporting Europe’s AI journey. As a signatory of the EU AI Pact and a proponent of international AI principles, we understand that maximizing AI’s value across the economy demands trusted infrastructure and robust security. Read our detailed recommendations for the AI Continent Action Plan and Cloud and AI Development Act here.

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