European Economic
and Social Committee
Cloud and AI Development Act
EESC opinion on the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a framework of measures for strengthening Europe’s cloud and AI ecosystem (Cloud and AI Development Act) - COM(2026) 502 final - 2026/0138 (COD).
The EESC Youth Test is being applied to this opinion. ESDN Youth was chosen by a group of interested youth organisations to represent all of them during the opinion-making process.
Background
EESC is drafting an opinion on European Commission proposal for the Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA) which aims at strengthening the EU's cloud and AI ecosystem, investment and infrastructure. The ongoing deployment of AI factories and AI gigafactories aims to provide broad access to high-capacity, next-generation computational resources for European businesses and researchers requiring AI capabilities. To complement this, the EU needs to expand its cloud and data centre capacity to support the wider deployment and diffusion of AI. The CADA aims at reinforcing energy-efficient data centre capacity, while complementing the Apply AI strategy to boost the adoption of artificial intelligence and cloud across Europe. It will focus on three objectives:
- Research, development and innovation: supporting efforts to deploy the next generation of cutting-edge and sustainable cloud and AI technologies;
- Capacity: accelerating the conditions for deploying data centres across the EU, focusing on facilities that enhance essential public sector functions;
- Autonomy: introducing a single EU-wide assessment framework for cloud and AI sovereignty, accompanied by a public sector adoption mechanism.
Practical information
Composition of the study group
Administrator in charge: Jana VALANT
Assistant: Alexandra SEIDENBERG
For more information please contact the INT Section Secretariat