BRUSSELS, July 30 (Reuters) - Alphabet's

Google will sign the European Union's code of practice which

aims to help companies comply with the bloc's landmark

artificial intelligence rules, its global affairs president said

in a blog post on Wednesday, though he voiced some concerns.

The voluntary code of practice, drawn up by 13 independent

experts, aims to provide legal certainty to signatories on how

to meet requirements under the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI

Act), such as issuing summaries of the content used to train

their general-purpose AI models and complying with EU copyright

law.

"We do so with the hope that this code, as applied, will

promote European citizens' and businesses' access to secure,

first-rate AI tools as they become available," Kent Walker, who

is also Alphabet's chief legal officer, said in the blog post.

He added, however, that Google was concerned that the AI Act

and code of practice risk slowing Europe's development and

deployment of AI.

"In particular, departures from EU copyright law, steps that

slow approvals, or requirements that expose trade secrets could

chill European model development and deployment, harming

Europe's competitiveness," Walker said.

Microsoft will likely sign the code, its president,

Brad Smith, told Reuters earlier this month, while Meta

Platforms ( META ) declined to do so and cited the legal

uncertainties for model developers.

The European Union enacted the guardrails for the use of

artificial intelligence in an attempt to set a