Article 25 Responsibilities along the AI value chain

In light of the nature and complexity of the value chain for AI systems and in line with the New Legislative Framework, it is essential to ensure legal certainty and facilitate the compliance with this Regulation. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify the role and the specific obligations of relevant operators along that value chain, such as importers and distributors who may contribute to the development of AI systems. In certain situations those operators could act in more than one role at the same time and should therefore fulfil cumulatively all relevant obligations associated with those roles. For example, an operator could act as a distributor and an importer at the same time.

To ensure legal certainty, it is necessary to clarify that, under certain specific conditions, any distributor, importer, deployer or other third-party should be considered to be a provider of a high-risk AI system and therefore assume all the relevant obligations. This would be the case if that party puts its name or trademark on a high-risk AI system already placed on the market or put into service, without prejudice to contractual arrangements stipulating that the obligations are allocated otherwise. This would also be the case if that party makes a substantial modification to a high-risk AI system that has already been placed on the market or has already been put into service in a way that it remains a high-risk AI system in accordance with this Regulation, or if it modifies the intended purpose of an AI system, including a general-purpose AI system, which has not been classified as high-risk and has already been placed on the market or put into service, in a way that the AI system becomes a high-risk AI system in accordance with this Regulation. Those provisions should apply without prejudice to more specific provisions established in certain Union harmonisation legislation based on the New Legislative Framework, together with which this Regulation should apply. For example, Article 16(2) of Regulation (EU) 2017/745, establishing that certain changes should not be considered to be modifications of a device that could affect its compliance with the applicable requirements, should continue to apply to high-risk AI systems that are medical devices within the meaning of that Regulation.

General-purpose AI systems may be used as high-risk AI systems by themselves or be components of other high-risk AI systems. Therefore, due to their particular nature and in order to ensure a fair sharing of responsibilities along the AI value chain, the providers of such systems should, irrespective of whether they may be used as high-risk AI systems as such by other providers or as components of high-risk AI systems and unless provided otherwise under this Regulation, closely cooperate with the providers of the relevant high-risk AI systems to enable their compliance with the relevant obligations under this Regulation and with the competent authorities established under this Regulation.

Where, under the conditions laid down in this Regulation, the provider that initially placed the AI system on the market or put it into service should no longer be considered to be the provider for the purposes of this Regulation, and when that provider has not expressly excluded the change of the AI system into a high-risk AI system, the former provider should nonetheless closely cooperate and make available the necessary information and provide the reasonably expected technical access and other assistance that are required for the fulfilment of the obligations set out in this Regulation, in particular regarding the compliance with the conformity assessment of high-risk AI systems.

In addition, where a high-risk AI system that is a safety component of a product which falls within the scope of Union harmonisation legislation based on the New Legislative Framework is not placed on the market or put into service independently from the product, the product manufacturer defined in that legislation should comply with the obligations of the provider established in this Regulation and should, in particular, ensure that the AI system embedded in the final product complies with the requirements of this Regulation.

Along the AI value chain multiple parties often supply AI systems, tools and services but also components or processes that are incorporated by the provider into the AI system with various objectives, including the model training, model retraining, model testing and evaluation, integration into software, or other aspects of model development. Those parties have an important role to play in the value chain towards the provider of the high-risk AI system into which their AI systems, tools, services, components or processes are integrated, and should provide by written agreement this provider with the necessary information, capabilities, technical access and other assistance based on the generally acknowledged state of the art, in order to enable the provider to fully comply with the obligations set out in this Regulation, without compromising their own intellectual property rights or trade secrets.

Third parties making accessible to the public tools, services, processes, or AI components other than general-purpose AI models, should not be mandated to comply with requirements targeting the responsibilities along the AI value chain, in particular towards the provider that has used or integrated them, when those tools, services, processes, or AI components are made accessible under a free and open-source licence. Developers of free and open-source tools, services, processes, or AI components other than general-purpose AI models should be encouraged to implement widely adopted documentation practices, such as model cards and data sheets, as a way to accelerate information sharing along the AI value chain, allowing the promotion of trustworthy AI systems in the Union.

The Commission could develop and recommend voluntary model contractual terms between providers of high-risk AI systems and third parties that supply tools, services, components or processes that are used or integrated in high-risk AI systems, to facilitate the cooperation along the value chain. When developing voluntary model contractual terms, the Commission should also take into account possible contractual requirements applicable in specific sectors or business cases.