The European Commission this week announced an AI Continent Action plan that calls for investments in AI and HPC accompanied by multiple AI factories across Europe. The EC said 13 of these factories are being deployed in conjunction with the continent’s supercomputing resources and are intended to support EU AI startups, industry and researchers in developing AI models and applications.The commission said its AI Gigafactories “will be large-scale facilities equipped with approximately 100,000 state-of-the-art AI chips, four times more than current AI factories.” While the EC said its intent is to become a global leader in AI, they also also acknowledged that “despite the potential of AI, only 13.5% of companies in the EU have adopted AI.”
To become a global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) is the objective of the AI Continent Action Plan launched today. As set out by President von der Leyen at the AI Action Summit in February 2025 in Paris, this ambitious initiative is set to transform Europe’s strong traditional industries and its exceptional talent pool into powerful engines of AI innovation and acceleration.
The race for leadership in AI is far from over. From cutting-edge foundation models to specialised AI applications, the AI landscape in the EU is dynamic. It is driven by research, emerging technologies and a thriving ecosystem of startups and scaleups. The AI Continent Action Plan will boost the European Union’s AI innovation capabilities through actions and policies around five key pillars:
- Building a large-scale AI data and computing infrastructure
The Commission will strengthen Europe’s AI and supercomputing infrastructure with a network of AI Factories. 13 of these factories are already being deployed around Europe’s world-leading supercomputers. They will support EU AI startups, industry and researchers in developing AI models and applications.
As announced in the Competitiveness Compass, the EU will also help set up AI Gigafactories. These will be large-scale facilities equipped with approximately 100,000 state-of-the-art AI chips, four times more than current AI factories. They will integrate massive computing power and data centres to train and develop complex AI models at unprecedented scale. The AI Gigafactories will lead the next wave of frontier AI models and maintain the EU’s strategic autonomy in critical industrial sectors and science, requiring public and private investments. A call for expression of interest for interested consortia is published today.
Private investment in Gigafactories will be further stimulated through the InvestAI, which will mobilise €20 billion investment for up to five AI Gigafactories across the Union.
To stimulate private sector investment in cloud capacity and data centres, the Commission will also propose a Cloud and AI Development Act. The goal is to at least triple the EU’s data centre capacity in the next five to seven years, prioritising highly sustainable data centres.
- Increasing access to large and high-quality data
Bolstering AI innovation also requires access to large volumes of high-quality data. An important element of the Action Plan is the creation of Data Labs, bringing together and curating large, high-quality data volumes from different sources in AI Factories. A comprehensive Data Union Strategy will be launched in 2025 to create a true internal market for data that can scale up AI solutions.
Content retrieved from: https://insideainews.com/2025/04/10/european-commission-launches-ai-action-plan-with-13-ai-gigafactories/.
