(Telecompaper) The European Commission has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Big Data Value Association that will see EUR 2.5 billion allocated to a series of big data projects between 2015 and 2020. The EC itself has earmarked EUR 500 million in funding from Horizon 2020, with private partners pledging to at least quadruple that figure. The aim is to open up 30 percent of the global data market for European suppliers, creating some 100,000 new data-related jobs by 2020. The EC said added benefits could include 10 percent lower energy consumption, better health-care outcomes and more productive industrial machinery. Presenting the partnership, outgoing EU digital economy commissioner Neelie Kroes described data as "the motor and foundation of the future economy", adding that "every kind of organisation needs the building blocks to boost their performance, from farm to factory, from the lab to the shop floor." Kroes signed the MoU with Jan Sundelin, president of Big Data Value Association, representing companies such as Atos, Nokia, Orange, SAP, Siemens, as well as research bodies such as Fraunhofer and the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence.