EU Launches New Blockchain and AI Fund Worth €400M
By Tyler Smith – Crypto Investor
The European Union has established a new blockchain AI fund to avoid falling behind the United States and China on AI innovation and especially blockchain. It has not been said if users will be required to buy cryptocurrency on the chain to power the network and execute contracts.
According to a blog post released on Wednesday, the European Commission and the European Investment Fund (EIS) have collaborated to set up a dedicated investment scheme worth €100m. This is to make the capital investment to blockchain in AI projects via Venture Capital (VC) funds as well as other investors. Many of these may buy and sell Bitcoin already but could be looking for a blockchain project that incorporates AI.
Now that the "cornerstone" funding is secured, the EIF says that private investors are looking to invest €300 million into the fund, with the total rising even further the following year, along with co-investment from national promotional banks under the scheme.
Under the InvestEU Programme, Sifted, a newsletter website that discusses issues and matters regarding European start-ups and innovators, claims that the fund could eventually go up to €2 billion ($2.2 billion).
The post reports that the EU already spends a lot on blockchain (supposedly $674 million), but that is mostly towards proof of concepts and research. They have not developed their own blockchain for users to buy and sell cryptocurrency and potentially use within the EU.
Per the International Data Corporation's cited numbers, the biggest investor in Blockchain technology is the United States with an expected spend of over $1.1 billion, followed by China with over $319 million. This does not equate to the US achieving the highest amount of trades buying and selling Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.
This new fund hopes to explain that not much money is being spent in the EU when it comes to developing "larger-scale projects".
The EIF says:
"Investing in a portfolio of innovative AI and blockchain companies will help develop a dynamic EU-wide investors community on AI and blockchain.” The EIF would also like to involve national promotional banks to enable them to scale up the amount of investment into the project. It would seem the EU is willing to put some serious investment into AI within blockchain to ensure they don’t fall behind China and the US.
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