The EU AI Act, formally known as Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, is the European Union's comprehensive horizontal legal framework regulating artificial intelligence (AI) systems across all member states. Proposed by the European Commission on April 21, 2021, and published in the Official Journal on July 12, 2024, it entered into force on August 1, 2024, with phased implementation over 6 to 36 months. As the world's first comprehensive AI regulation, it adopts a risk-based approach categorizing AI systems into four levels: unacceptable risk (banned practices like social scoring), high-risk (strict obligations for critical applications such as hiring or law enforcement), limited risk (transparency requirements for systems like chatbots), and minimal risk (largely unregulated). The regulation aims to ensure AI is safe, transparent, traceable, non-discriminatory, and environmentally friendly while fostering innovation and protecting fundamental rights. Influenced by prior EU regulations like the GDPR, it sets a global standard for AI governance, impacting companies worldwide that operate in or export to the EU market. Non-compliance can result in fines up to €35 million or 7% of global annual turnover. The Act establishes bodies like the European AI Office for enforcement, promotes regulatory sandboxes for testing, bans manipulative AI and real-time biometric identification in public spaces (with exceptions), and requires human oversight for high-risk systems. It has inspired similar frameworks internationally and contrasts with more sector-specific approaches in other regions like the US.