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The “vast majority” of responses to a European Commission call for interest to invest in artificial intelligence gigafactories is European, despite global investors also being permitted to participate in the public-private partnerships, EU Commissioner for Technology told journalists at a press conference on Monday.
Henna Virkkunnen updated plans announced by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen earlier this year to mobilise €200bn for investment in artificial intelligence through an InvestAI fund.
Of this, €20bn will be earmarked for four to five AI gigafactories, needed to allow for “collaborative development” with the most complex AI models, according to the Commission.
The aim is to enable even small companies to access large-scale computing power for future development.
The proposals received so far “are immense in scale”, Virkkunen said, adding that together the companies are ready to invest more than €230 billion. “It does not mean that all of them will materialise, but it is positive news,” she added.
In total, there were some 76 expressions of interest.
The Commission will now enter into discussions with the respondents to the Commission’s call, as well as the member states.
An official call will come later this year, as part of the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking – a joint initiative between the EU, member states and private partners.
Competition
The Commission announced plans to build seven AI factories last year, but the larger gigafactories will have around 100,000 last-generation AI chips, around four times more than the AI factories currently being set up.
The gigafactories funded through InvestAI aim to be the largest public-private partnership in the world for the development of trustworthy AI, according to the EU executive. The Commission’s initial funding for InvestAI will come from existing EU funding programmes which have a digital component, such as the Digital Europe Programme, Horizon Europe, and InvestEU.
EU member states can also contribute by committing investment from existing earmarked cohesion funds.
That call came after other regions in the world, including the US, outperform Europe when it comes to AI funding and investment.
Earlier this year, US President Donald Trump also announced a joint venture, with Stargate, OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank, to invest billions of dollars in AI infrastructure in the country. The joint venture team will set up a separate company, deploying $100bn (€96bn) immediately and increasing the investment up to $500bn (€480bn) over the coming four years.
