AI TESTING AND EXPERIMENTATION FACILITIES AND DATA SPACES

Testing and Experimentation Facilities, defined by the European Commission in its Digital Europe Programme, are large-scale reference sites open to all product/service providers across Europe to test and experiment at scale and in “real” world environments, state-of-the art AI solutions, including both soft-and hardware products and services, e.g. robots. The first 4 selected TEFs started in January 2023 covering the sectors of agrifood, healthcare, manufacturing and smart cities & communities. Digital Europe Programme also includes the deployment of the so-called European Data Spaces, a concept included in the European Data Strategy, and defined as secure and trusted environments for the exchange, sharing, and use of data. Several Coordination and Support Actions aimed to pave the way for the creation of data spaces on different relevant sectors are currently running. On top of them, the Data Spaces Support Center (DSSC) aims to explore the needs of data space initiatives, define common requirements and establish best practices to accelerate their formation.

The main goal of this session is to bootstrap the identification and understanding of potential synergies between AI Testing and Experimentation Facilities and Data Spaces, and eventually define a path of collaboration towards both their specific and common objectives. The session will explore cross-cutting synergies (sustainability, governance, business model, commercial operations, relationships to national and EU legislation) but also sectorial synergies (addressing sector specific challenges and barriers). The expected outcome from this session is twofold: (i) the selection of a few key aspects where to focus the collaboration in the future (both at cross-cutting and sectorial and sectorial basis), and (ii) a path of collaboration based on those aspects and including next steps.

After a short introduction from the session organizers, there will be a set of presentations (by European Commission, Data Spaces Support Centre, etc) to introduce the different concepts, provide a framework and set-up the scene. This will be followed by two panel discussions, where Testing Experimentation Facilities and Data Spaces will be able to exchange ideas, objectives, challenges and strategies, focused on:

Sectorial specific aspects, with “two-by-two” discussions involving initiatives in the same sector
Cross-cutting aspects, with all initiatives addressing common issues in a “TEFs vs. data spaces”