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The objectives of the AI regulatory sandboxes should be to foster AI
innovation by establishing a controlled experimentation and testing environment in the
development and pre-marketing phase with a view to ensuring compliance of the innovative AI
systems with this Regulation and other relevant Union and national law. Moreover, the AI
regulatory sandboxes should aim to enhance legal certainty for innovators and the competent
authorities’ oversight and understanding of the opportunities, emerging risks and the impacts of
AI use, to facilitate regulatory learning for authorities and undertakings, including with
a view to future adaptions of the legal framework, to support cooperation and the sharing
of best practices with the authorities involved in the AI regulatory sandbox, and to accelerate
access to markets, including by removing barriers for SMEs, including start-ups. AI regulatory
sandboxes should be widely available throughout the Union, and particular attention should be
given to their accessibility for SMEs, including start-ups. The participation in the AI
regulatory sandbox should focus on issues that raise legal uncertainty for providers and
prospective providers to innovate, experiment with AI in the Union and contribute to
evidence-based regulatory learning. The supervision of the AI systems in the AI regulatory
sandbox should therefore cover their development, training, testing and validation before the
systems are placed on the market or put into service, as well as the notion and occurrence of
substantial modification that may require a new conformity assessment procedure. Any
significant risks identified during the development and testing of such AI systems should result
in adequate mitigation and, failing that, in the suspension of the development and testing
process. Where appropriate, national competent authorities establishing AI regulatory sandboxes
should cooperate with other relevant authorities, including those supervising the protection of
fundamental rights, and could allow for the involvement of other actors within the AI ecosystem
such as national or European standardisation organisations, notified bodies, testing and
experimentation facilities, research and experimentation labs, European Digital Innovation Hubs
and relevant stakeholder and civil society organisations. To ensure uniform implementation
across the Union and economies of scale, it is appropriate to establish common rules for the AI
regulatory sandboxes’ implementation and a framework for cooperation between the relevant
authorities involved in the supervision of the sandboxes. AI regulatory sandboxes established
under this Regulation should be without prejudice to other law allowing for the establishment of
other sandboxes aiming to ensure compliance with law other than this Regulation. Where
appropriate, relevant competent authorities in charge of those other regulatory sandboxes should
consider the benefits of using those sandboxes also for the purpose of ensuring compliance of AI
systems with this Regulation. Upon agreement between the national competent authorities and the
participants in the AI regulatory sandbox, testing in real world conditions may also be operated
and supervised in the framework of the AI regulatory sandbox.
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