The EU and US have agreed to share AI models, but keep key data at home. 

The United States and European Union have signed a deal that aims to improve the ways that artificial intelligence can assist in agriculture, healthcare, emergency response, climate forecasting and the electric grid.

Many advocates believe that AI modelling - in which machine-learning algorithms use data to make logical decisions - could improve the speed and efficiency of government operations and services. But there is also a need for major nations to protect their abilities. 

“The magic here is in building joint models [while] leaving data where it is,” a senior US administration official has told reporters.

“The US data stays in the US and European data stays there, but we can build a model that talks to the European and the US data because the more data and the more diverse data, the better the model.”

The new partnership should see data harnessed into a common AI model that can produce better results for emergency managers, grid operators and others relying on AI to improve systems.

The partnership has been forged between just the White House and the European Commission, but other countries will be invited to join in coming months.