On 9 April 2025 the European Commission (the Commission) launched a public consultation on the proposal for a Cloud and AI Development Act. The initiative forms part of the Commission’s AI Continent Action Plan that was published the same day. In the accompanying Call for Evidence, the Commission sets out background to its proposed initiative and its objectives, the main one of which is addressing the problems that currently limit the expansion of the European Union (EU) data centre capacity and the lack of a competitive EU-based offer of cloud computing services of a sufficiently large scale.
Given the breadth of the subject matter the ongoing consultation is not focused on any particular sector; to the contrary, the Commission seeks views from a variety of stakeholders, including financial institutions, investors, funds of digital infrastructure, cloud providers, data centre operators, AI developers and providers, and other interested parties.
In respect of financial institutions, the Commission is looking for feedback on the:
- Types of activities related to AI / cloud computing that the financial institution is investing in, and views on the level of investments.
- Main factors preventing the financial institutions from investing in new computing infrastructure capacity.
- Return on investment (ROI) expectations that the financial institutions have for computing infrastructure projects, as well as views on factors that limit the ROI of computing infrastructure investments, the expected break-even timeframe.
- Biggest challenges for investors in the computing infrastructures and views on what could make computing infrastructures investments more attractive for private investments.
Simultaneously to the consultation on the Cloud and AI Development Act, the Commission seeks stakeholders’ views on its non-legislative Apply AI Strategy.
Consultation is open until 4 June 2025.