The European Commission is presenting its new, long-awaited regulation on Artificial Intelligence (AI). This focus on AI on the part of the European Commission brings forward not only valuable questions for the continued evolution and safe deployment of this technology, but opportunities for ensuring the digital sovereignty of Europe for the future. To help address these questions and provide support to the deployment of AI in Europe, European standards play a key role. To organise and develop standardization work on this issue, CEN and CENELEC have established the CEN-CENELEC Joint Technical Committee 21 ‘Artificial Intelligence’.

This group brings together experts that will implement and lead the recommendations available in CEN and CENELEC’s response to the EC White Paper on AI and CEN and CENELEC’s Road Map on AI. 

The Joint Technical Committee, whose Secretariat is held by DS, the Danish Standardization Body, will be responsible for the development and adoption of standards for AI and related data, as well as provide guidance to other Technical Committees concerned with AI. Standards are relevant for the evolution of AI for a variety of reasons:

• they provide expertise to an emerging technology, ensuring safety and security for products and services;
• they are intrinsically designed to be an inclusive and market-driven instrument of support for European regulation through the New Legislative Framework, benefitting the Single Market and reducing barriers to trade.  

2021 is the European Year of Rail. On this occasion, CEN and CENELEC are proud to highlight the important role European standards play to ensure the well-functioning of a key sector for the future of Europe. Standardization on railways application is part of CEN and CENELEC’s wider work on transportation, a complex and large portfolio: it includes 1234 standards from CEN and CENELEC. These standards are mainly developed by two Technical Committees (TCs), CEN/TC 256 'Railway Applications' and CLC/TC 9X 'Electrical and electronic applications for railways'. In particular, standards on rail cover a wide range of topics specifically related to railways applications (products, processes and services), such as, among others, safety, rolling stock capacity, system efficiency, as well as cybersecurity, digitalisation, and automatic couplings. This work on rail contributes massively to the development of safe, innovative and efficient railway systems infrastructure, rolling stock and systems, and supports the EU in its strategic ambitions.