The European Union is offering 10 billion euros ($11.4 billion) in funding for firms to erect seven AI gigafactories as it seeks to close the AI gap with U.S. and China, the 27-nation bloc's executive said on Thursday.
The European Commission said it would like the public financing to draw an additional 20 billion euros ($22.8 billion) in private investment.
"Access to the raw scale of computing power within AI gigafactories is a strategic necessity for Europe as AI development accelerates,” said Henna Virkkunen, the Commission executive vice president overseeing tech sovereignty.
The efforts by Brussels to establish " tech sovereignty” have gained urgency as leaders worry about dependence on technologies from foreign providers, which they say could be "weaponized” against Europeans. U.S. President Donald Trump has railed against the EU over its tech regulations and China has limited the supply of minerals critical to the sector.
Firms can now bid for contracts to build gigafactories that are planned to have at least 100,000 cutting-edge AI chips, making them roughly four times more powerful than the data centers currently running in the EU.
