On 27 June 2023 the European Commission along with Member States and 128 partners from research, industry, and public organisations launched €220 million worth of investment in four sectoral Testing and Experimentation Facilities (TEFs) for AI, at an event in Copenhagen.

The European Commission co-funds the TEFs with €110 million over five years under the Digital Europe Programme.

TEFs are designed to support AI developers to bring trustworthy AI to the market more efficiently, and facilitate its uptake in Europe, as well as to act as a sandbox for AI technologies’ development and deployment. They are open to all technology providers across Europe to test and experiment with AI and robotics among other emerging technologies.

The four TEFs launched include:

• The CitCom.ai TEF which is intended to help develop tech for smart cities and communities, with an initial focus on energy, transport, and connectivity. It will help accelerate the development of trustworthy AI in Europe by giving companies access to test and try out AI-based products in real-world conditions;
• The TEF-Health which concerns the healthcare sector, from machine learning in medical imaging to complex brain simulations, and robots for intervention and rehabilitation;
• The AI-Matters TEF, which aims to increase the resilience and flexibility of the European manufacturing sector by deploying the latest developments in AI and robotics and intelligent, autonomous systems for flexible production;
• The agrifood TEF which deals with the agricultural sector and food production. Examples of use would include testing a robotic tractor, or using artificial intelligence to optimise crop production.

The four testing facilities will be fully open as of January 2024 with some services already starting in July 2023.