From Foundation to Transformation: Advancing European Foundational Models for impact

Background & Motivation

Foundation models represent one of the most significant advancements in artificial intelligence in recent years. Built on large-scale data and compute infrastructures, these models have enabled progress across a wide range of domains—from language and vision tasks to science and engineering applications.

To date, however, the development of these models has been largely concentrated outside of Europe. This raises important considerations regarding digital autonomy, technological competitiveness, and the ability to ensure alignment with European priorities—including openness, multilingualism, and inclusion.

There is increasing momentum in Europe to play a more active role in the foundation model ecosystem—not only as a user, but also as a developer, adapter, and innovator of next-generation AI capabilities, particularly in multilingual and multimodal contexts.

This session aims to explore foundation models not simply as technological innovations, but as a form of strategic infrastructure—a cornerstone of Europe’s digital future that supports innovation, governance, and societal benefit.

Objectives

• Highlight emerging European efforts in the development of foundation models, with a focus on open-source, multilingual, and multimodal approaches.
• Explore adaptation and use of foundation models across high-impact sectors such as health, climate, legal, manufacturing, and education.
• Identify critical enablers—including infrastructure, evaluation methods, and regulatory frameworks—needed to support their safe and effective deployment in Europe.
• Foster cross-sector collaboration among researchers, innovators, industry actors, and policymakers to ensure Europe can shape and sustain its foundation model ecosystem.