Four companies received the first investments:

• Fractile AI (UK) is a London-based computer chip maker that aims to speed up large-scale language models (LLMs), such as those powering ChatGPT.
• ARX ​​Robotics (Germany) develops unmanned robots for various tasks, from lifting heavy objects to surveillance.
• iCOMAT (UK) produces light and strong materials for vehicles.
• Space Forge (UK) uses the conditions of space (microgravity, vacuum) to manufacture semiconductors in orbit.

As part of the announcement, NATO Innovation Fund also provided support for a group of fund managers, including:

• Alpine Space Ventures, an early-stage fund bringing over 50 years of space industry expertise to empower select startups to deliver key space-enabled capabilities.
• OTB Ventures, an early growth fund originating from Central Europe, investing in spacetech, enterprise automation & AI, cybersecurity, and fintech infrastructure.
• JOIN CAPITAL, a Berlin-based early stage venture capital focused on deep tech investments across industrial and enterprise tech.
• Vsquared Ventures, which invests in early stage deep tech companies, whose groundbreaking technologies can address some of society’s most pressing challenges across AI & next-gen software, energy transition, new computing and sensing, new space, robotics and manufacturing, and tech-bio.

About NATO Innovation fund

The alliance announced the creation of the fund in the summer of 2022, months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, pledging to invest in technology that would strengthen its defenses.

The fund is partnering with venture capital funds Alpine Space Ventures, OTB Ventures, Join Capital and Vsquared Ventures to support deep tech investments on the continent. It is supported by 24 of NATO’s 32 member states, including Finland and Sweden, which joined the alliance earlier this year.

AIN shares the key details of the study, as well as shares insights on the CEE region.

Global trends in global usage of mobile data

• Singapore has the most affordable mobile data in the world, while Guinea has the least affordable data in the world.
• The United States of America sit at the 35th place out of 179 countries.
• Europe has the most affordable mobile data in the world, on average costing $21.96, equivalent to 1.37% of an average salary.
• The continent of South America has the cheapest mobile in the world ($16,90) but the lowest average salaries in the world, meaning the purchasing power of its residents is reduced.
• The sub-continent of Central Asia has the cheapest mobile data ($8,88).
• G7 countries (developed economies): United Kingdom (5th), Germany (13th), Italy (20th), United States (35th), Japan (41st), France (44th), and Canada (62nd) have mobile data more affordable than the global average.

It should be no surprise to see many European countries at the top of the study. These countries benefit from having a competitive mobile market which drives down prices for consumers. Coupled with having the highest wages in the world, almost more than double any other continent, means it is ahead of the competition when it comes to mobile data affordability,

Alex Tofts, telecoms expert at Broadband Genie, commented.

Eastern Europe

The region is the fourth cheapest for mobile plans. Poland, Romania, Ukraine, Moldova all have average data plans under $10,00. But because of lower wages than other parts of Europe, Poland is the only country in the region in the top ten for affordability.

• Mobile data as a percentage of salary: the average of 1.65%.
• Average phone plan cost: $14,95.
• Countries tested: 10.
• Total tariffs measured: 7,538.

Romania is ranked 27th (with only 0.95% of their salary spent on mobile data), Finland — 28th (1%), Lithuania — 34th (1.12%), Estonia — 47th (1.29%). Ukraine ranked 52nd in the worldwide ranking (out of the 179 countries included in the research). On average, residents of Ukraine spend 1.37% of their salary on mobile data, succeded by Moldova, Latvia, and Belarus.

This means that Russian companies will not be able to use these products or access the data contained in them.

Microsoft explained this decision by EU sanctions against Russia. The 12th package, adopted on December 19, 2023, contains restrictions on the supply of software for business intelligence (BI), customer relationship management (CRM), and other products.

Will this affect regular users?

The representatives at Softline replied that there is no unequivocal answer yet because it is not clear how the blocking will take place technically.

If the Russians do not store all Google data locally, they may lose access to it starting March 20, 2024. This means they won’t be able to view, edit, or download files stored on Google Drive; use other Google products that are integrated with Google Drive, such as Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides.

Earlier this month, it became known that the EU lifted sanctions on Yandex co-founder Arkady Volozh. The decision is yet to be explained.

The field of AI is booming and becoming very profitable, but at the same time it raises concerns about biases, privacy, and even the future of humanity. Creators of the bill say that it will make the technology more human-centered.

Advanced position

• According to BBC, the law puts the EU at the forefront of global efforts to tackle the dangers of AI.
• China has already introduced a number of AI laws. In October 2023, US President Joe Biden signed an executive order requiring artificial intelligence (AI) developers to share security findings with the US government. But the EU went even further.
• The EU’s AI law is the world’s first and only set of mandatory requirements to mitigate risks, according to Enza Iannopollo, principal analyst at Forrester. She added that this would make the EU the “de facto” world standard for reliable AI, leaving all other regions, including the UK, to ” play catch-up”.
• The UK hosted an AI safety summit in November 2023, but is not planning legislation along the lines of the AI Act.

How the AI Act will work

• The main idea behind the law is to regulate AI based on its ability to harm society: the higher the risk, the stricter the rules.
• AI applications that pose a “clear risk to fundamental rights” will be banned, for example some of those that involve the processing of biometric data.
• AI systems considered as “high-risk”, such as those used in critical infrastructure, education, healthcare, law enforcement, border management or elections, must meet strict requirements.
• “Low-risk” services such as spam filters will face the lightest regulation – the EU expects most services to fall into this category.
• The law also creates provisions to combat the risks posed by the systems behind generative AI tools and chatbots, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
• This will require manufacturers of some so-called multi-purpose AI systems that can be used for multiple tasks to be open about the materials used to train their models and comply with EU copyright law.

Copyright laws

• The copyright provisions were one of the most lobbied parts of the bill.
• OpenAI, Stability AI, and GPU giant Nvidia are among a handful of AI companies facing lawsuits over their use of data to train generative models.
• Some artists, writers, and musicians argue that the process of “harvesting” vast amounts of data, potentially including their own work, from virtually all corners of the Internet violates copyright laws.
• The bill needs to go through several more stages before it officially becomes law.

Lawyer-linguists, whose job is to check and translate laws, will scour its text and the European Council — composed of representatives of EU member states — will also need to endorse it, though that is expected to be just a formality.

• In addition, the EU also lifted sanctions against Sergei Mndoyants, former vice-president of the russian business conglomerate AFK Sistema, as well as Jozef Hambalek, who heads the European branch of the pro-kremlin Night Wolves motorcycle club. The document does not specify the reasons for such a decision.
• Nine more people were also removed from the sanctions list due to their deaths, including Dmytro Utkin, the commander of Wagner PMK, who died together with Yevgeny Prigozhin during a plane crash in August 2023. At the same time, Prigozhin himself remains under sanctions.
• The decision to exclude these persons from the list comes into effect the day after its publication in the EU Journal.

What preceded this?

Arkady Volozh, was initially included on the EU sanctions list in June 2023. Soon after that, he left management positions at Yandex and the group’s international subsidiaries. 

In August 2023, for the first time since the beginning of the full-scale war, Volozh spoke out against russia’s actions in Ukraine, calling the full-scale invasion “barbaric.” Later, it became known that the businessman asked the European Union to remove sanctions from him.

Yandex is currently in the process of selling the russian part of the company. It is expected that a consortium of russian investors will gain control over the russian asset, and Arkady Volozh and foreign shareholders will share it in the Dutch company.