Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 7 hours ago

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▶️ Session Seven - Artificial Intelligence and quantum: How can the EU get the best out of the transformative technologies?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already transformed the way we communicate and work, opening vast new possibilities for the future. Combined with high-performance computing and advancing quantum technology, AI will become an even more powerful tool with applications across virtually all areas of our life - from business, governance, public discourse, and politics to defence and security. It will enable us to push the frontiers of science - accelerating innovation, efficiency and competitiveness, heralding the 6th Industrial Revolution. It will challenge us to acquire new skills. Many jobs as we know them today are likely to disappear, others will be transformed and more will be created that require new skills. The role of management will dramatically change, and so will public governance at all levels.

Data analysis, planning, process management and content-processing tasks, as well as interaction with customers, will be automated by AI, increasing efficiency at work. We will see autonomous transport being rolled out. AI will increasingly be used to help assess risks and predict future developments. Fed by data, AI will know more about us than we might wish!

Alongside the expanding capabilities and applications of AI will come new challenges – not least how to shape it in a way that serves humanity and aligns with our values? How can we ensure human control over the technology capable of learning and improving on its own? How can we prevent its use for criminal and malicious purposes and address the growing problem of “dark AI”?

With such far-reaching potential, AI and quantum will play an important role in an increasingly contested geopolitical environment. How can Europe ensure a leading role with strategic autonomy in the global technological race? How can it ensure that regulation will not hinder our competitive advantage? What policies do we need to embrace future opportunities and manage future risks? How can we ensure the transformation will benefit society as a whole, and how can Europe be at the forefront of this challenge?

Moderator:
Paweł Świeboda, Senior Fellow, Centre for Future Generations and the European Policy Centre; Co-Director, Brussels Economic Security Forum

Speakers:
Jerry Sheehan, Director, Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation, OECD
Ajit Jaokar, Visiting fellow: Department of Engineering Science University of Oxford and Course Director: Artificial Intelligence
Ann Mettler, Former Director-General, European Commission and Vice-President, Europe, Breakthrough Energy
Iraia Ibarzabal, Chief Growth Officer, Multiverse Computing