EU opens race to build next generation AI Gigafactories
The European Commission has launched a call for tenders to establish up to 7 AI Gigafactories across the European Union, aiming to expand the bloc's computing capacity and strengthen its technological sovereignty in artificial intelligence, Qazinform News Agency correspondent reports.
The initiative will be led by industry and backed by up to €10 billion in combined EU and national funding. The Commission expects the program to attract at least €20 billion in private investment, bringing the total investment to more than €30 billion.
The AI Gigafactories will provide large-scale computing infrastructure for training, inference and fine-tuning advanced AI models. The facilities will combine advanced AI processors, software, cloud technology, high-speed connectivity and energy-efficient data centers. They are intended to serve start-ups, scale-ups, small and medium-sized enterprises, industry, academia and public authorities.
The new facilities will complement Europe's existing network of 19 AI Factories and are designed to strengthen the EU's technological leadership, resilience and strategic autonomy. According to the Commission, AI systems developed using the Gigafactories will comply with EU standards on data protection, safety, security and ethics.
Applications are open to consortia or special purpose vehicles bringing together companies, public entities, investors and other partners. Projects may be located in a single EU member state, either on one site or across multiple locations, or developed jointly by several member states through distributed computing facilities.
The procurement process will support up to 7 projects across two development phases.
The first funding category will support up to four projects, each eligible for up to €100 million in EU funding during the first phase and up to an additional €400 million in the second phase. A second category will support up to three larger projects, each eligible for up to €200 million initially and up to €800 million in the second phase.
Eighteen EU member states have signed a joint procurement agreement with the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU): Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden.
The Commission said AI Gigafactory consortia will be able to procure hardware from suppliers in Europe and other like-minded countries. It also announced that, following the recent EU-US trade agreement, it has signed letters of intent with U.S. chipmakers AMD, NVIDIA and Qualcomm to help ensure access to the computing hardware needed for the projects.
The call for proposals closes on November 12, 2026. Following evaluation by the EuroHPC JU, successful projects are expected to be selected in early 2027, with construction beginning later that year. The Commission expects the first AI Gigafactories to become operational within 18 months after contracts are signed.
Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that Britain's energy regulator Ofgem launched a consultation on new measures aimed at removing speculative data center projects from the country's electricity connections queue.