The third edition of the Digitising European Industry Stakeholder Forum took place in Madrid from the 13th to the 15th of November 2019. This year’s edition, organised by the European Commission and the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism focused on the thematic topic of “Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Hubs – beyond 2020″.

The Stakeholder Forum is a public event organised on a yearly basis by the European Commission and one Member State within the context of the Digitising European Industry initiative (DEI). As Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications are quickly becoming a core element of many industrial environments, the upcoming Horizon Europe and Digital Europe programmes are shaped to strongly support investments for the development and widespread deployment of digital technologies.

This annual meeting gathered together funding agencies, business support agencies and technology suppliers all working with digitalisation. The opportunity to make a point on current issues, but also on funding, the digital that was the main subject and the financing of SMEs.

Christian DUBARRY, Head of European affairs and International relations, represented Bpifrance over the forum by introducing new support to the digitalisation of the industry in France and to make an update to the guaranteed loan program « FranceNum » which should be launched in the first half of 2020, managed by Bpifrance and supported by the State, the Commission and the European Investment Bank Group with a target of 10,000 enterprises per year.

The FranceNum loan guarantee has the following economic policy objectives:

• Enable SMEs to initiate or consolidate the digitalisation of their business and ensure its sustainability
• Increase tangible and intangible investments, including the use of consulting or training services for their employees
• Compensate for market failures observed in the financing of such investments, riskier for financial institutions
• Contribute to a long-term growth strategy of these companies