The European Union has launched a call for tenders to establish up to seven AI Gigafactories across Europe, the latest step in its effort to strengthen technological sovereignty and advance its ambition of becoming an “AI Continent.” The initiative is led by industry and backed by up to €10 billion in EU and national funding.
Brussels expects the program to unlock at least €20 billion in private investment across the Union. The facilities are intended to expand Europe’s AI computing capacity and provide start-ups, scale-ups, small and medium-sized enterprises, industry, academia and public authorities with infrastructure for training, inference and fine-tuning advanced frontier AI models.
According to the EU, the Gigafactories will combine advanced AI processors, software and cloud technology stacks, high-speed connectivity and energy-efficient data centres. Working alongside Europe’s existing network of 19 AI Factories, they are meant to support AI development on European infrastructure and in line with EU standards on data protection, safety, security and ethics.